Irish director Laura McGann has told RTÉ Entertainment that the reaction to her freediving documentary The Deepest Breath is "just incredible", with the film currently the fifth most-watched movie on Netflix around the world.
A word-of-mouth hit and also critically acclaimed, The Deepest Breath tells the story of the Irish expert safety diver Stephen Keenan and the Italian freediver Alessia Zecchini and their love for one of the most dangerous sports in the world, where devotees travel to the deep on a single breath.
Kildare filmmaker McGann first read about Stephen Keenan and Alessia Zecchini's story in 2017 and soon set about bringing it to the world.
"I had to google 'What is freediving?' and being met by these incredible images, seeing the people underwater behaving more like seals and dolphins," she told RTÉ Entertainment.
"The diver is putting their life in the hands of the safety diver. It's like the ultimate trust exercise. When you do that and you dive down, you are trusting that they're going to have your back. If anything happens to you, they're going to bring you back up to the air, to life, to your family, to the beach.
"I couldn't believe what I was looking at. It was like learning that there was somebody somewhere on the Earth that had learned how to fly. Seeing somebody doing it, I held my breath - I did all those things that hopefully the audience do when they're watching the film."
In making her film, the director was helped hugely by a tight-knit global freediving community that "wanted to tell this story".
"I started to get to know more about Stephen and Alessia and then I just fell in love with the story. It just spoke to me on so many levels - but it was really the seize-the-day attitude of both of them and the perseverance that they both showed that really drew me to it.
"The most important thing to me as a filmmaker is that the people in the film like the film and are glad they took part - after all is said and done that they're proud of it and they feel like it represents them. With a story that's as delicate as this one, that was always my number one priority."
Since its release on Netflix last week, The Deepest Breath has now made its way into hearts and homes around the world - Dublin company Motive Films is among the producers on the film.
"You work on something for years and years and sometimes you don't know. You can feel yourself that you connect with it, but you've no idea if anybody else really is going to connect with it," said McGann.
"For people to connect with Alessia and Stephen's story, it's really lovely. There's an awful lot of good wishes online."
The Deepest Breath has already been screened in cinemas in the United States - meaning that it is eligible for consideration for next year's Oscars.
"To get it out on the big screen is incredible and whatever comes then comes," said McGann.
"With this project, it continued to exceed my expectations from the very first day - even just by the fact that we were able to make it in the way that we did. By the fact that people were so generous with their stories, with their archives. This was a major team effort and it wouldn't have been possible without everybody's commitment and everyone taking part. That blew my mind.
"What I'd love people to take from the film is: Stephen and Alessia followed their dreams and they had this curiosity that didn't get dampened down as adults. There's so much love in their stories and just following their own guts. I kind of feel if people lived a little more like them, the world would be a nicer place."
"People's response to it now - I'm just so delighted for the people that are in it and for people who love Stephen and Alessia that they're getting this positive response," she concluded.
"I think everybody that I've ever met has sent me a message to say that they watched it."
The Deepest Breath is streaming now on Netflix and is in selected cinemas.
