The Deepest Breath was written and directed by Laura McGann and is a co-production between Jamie D’Alton and Anne McLoughlin of Ireland’s Motive Films and John Battsek and Sarah Thompson of US company Ventureland.
As the documentary is set in the world of ocean diving, it follows Italian freediver Alessia Zecchini on her quest to break a world record in freediving.
Freediving is one of the most dangerous sports in the world where competitors try to reach the greatest depth without using scuba gear.
As freedivers are often subject to blackouts upon ascent, they rely on help from safety divers, such as Stephen Keenan.
Mr Keenan is an Irish adventurer turned freediving expert. Mr Keenan spent time travelling across Africa before settling in Dahab in Egypt and established a dive school.
Stephen Keenan. Photo: Netflix
The documentary’s director Laura McGann, who currently lives in Co Wicklow with her wife and daughter, became interested in films at a young age, following in the footsteps of her grandfather, who was an avid filmmaker, and her grand-uncle, who ran cinemas.
She studied film in Dublin and then went on to do a masters’ degree in documentary filmmaking at Hope University, Liverpool.
Her first festival short – The End of the Counter – made with the support of the Irish Film Board, saw her revisit her grandfather’s films from the 1960s about the moment the first supermarket arrived in Ireland.
It won several awards, including Best Short Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh.
Laura McGann. Photo: Netflix
She has worked in Ireland and abroad directing more than 20 documentaries for RTÉ, Sky, PBS, BBC, Lonely Planet and UTV.
Anne McLoughlin and Jamie D’Alton are Irish documentary and factual entertainment producers who own Motive Films.
They have produced films such as Prison Families, The Estate, The Irish Of 9-11, Dole Life, We Got Game, The Classroom Divide and The Edge of Town.
These documentaries were all nominated at the Irish Film and Television Awards, with I Am Immigrant and Man On A Mission winning the Best Documentary and Best Sport Documentary categories respectively.
Alessia Zecchini in The Deepest Breath. Photo: Netflix
Their recent feature Notorious about Conor McGregor for Universal Pictures is the highest-grossing Irish documentary of all time.
