After geopolitics forced him into exile, Alexey Molchanov - the world's greatest living freediver and the son of freediving pioneer Natalia Molchanova - spent 2023 on a journey to reclaim his athletic glory and honor his iconic mother's towering legacy by attempting the most dominant season in the history of the deadly sport. His near-suicidal quest to set five world records in under four months brings him to the farthest reaches of the globe and to the very edges of human performance. In the process, he's forced to reevaluate all the skills and beliefs on which he has built his entire life.
Category
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Short filmTranscript
00:00I'm very competitive, always have been since I was a kid.
00:29Alexei is the greatest freediver in the world.
00:33If Alexei can get all five world records within the same season,
00:37it would be something that's never been done before.
00:40My mom was my coach since the beginning.
00:42Natalia Molchanova is widely considered the greatest freediver of all time.
00:45She'd had 41 world records and 23 world titles.
00:49They were like best friends, and now Alexei is training to follow in the footsteps of his mother.
00:55But that can be dangerous.
00:5740 meters, 50, 100, 140.
01:02Natalia was teaching in Spain and went down on a fun dive, and she didn't come back up.
01:09And I was so surprised to see Alexei was competing.
01:12I was thinking, oh my God, can you not take a year off or so?
01:17That was his way to overcome the pain.
01:21Alexei is going deeper than he has been before.
01:24He's going too far.
01:26Have you and your wife ever talked about what happens when you come back?
01:29No.
01:31I don't understand the reasoning for adding eight meters to a dive that you failed.
01:36Expected dive time, four minutes.
01:39Alexei doesn't see himself in any danger.
01:42There are risks we are willing to take and we get comfortable with.
01:46And because of that, we think that we're immune to them.
01:50When you have this physiological ticket to eternity, that would be addictive.
01:56Free Diver, rated PG.