‘The Last Of The Sea Women’: Oscar-Contending Doc Goes Deep With “Bad-Ass” Guardians Of Ancient Tradition

deadline.com:

One of this year’s acclaimed Oscar-contending documentaries goes below the waves with a remarkable community of women free divers off the coast of South Korea.

They’re formally known as “haenyeo,” but sometimes referred to as “Korea’s mermaids.” Filmmaker Sue Kim’s term for them: “A bad-ass girl gang.” The director of the Apple Original Film The Last of the Sea Women first observed the haenyeo as a child. “The very first time I ever saw them in person, it was on my first trip ever to Korea with my family when I was 8 years old,” Kim recalled at a recent Q&A. “My parents took me and my brother down to Jeju Island — Jeju’s like the Hawaii of Korea… We were walking along the coast and just very spontaneously and organically saw this large group of women who were all dressed in their wetsuits… I just was so struck by them by that first appearance, and they caused such a commotion, and then they just went into the water and disappeared.

And as an 8-year-old, that made such an impression.” Kim said it was her mother who initially explained more about the haenyeo. “She told me, ‘They’re considered Korea’s mermaids, and they harvest marine life and they’ve been doing this for centuries, and they basically are the breadwinners of Jeju Island.’ …It sort of imprinted on me permanently.” The haenyo take masks and flippers into the water, but not oxygen tanks: every conch, sea urchin or sea stone pineapple they harvest is collected while the divers hold their breath.

It’s dangerous work – fierce currents and exhaustion have cost haenyo their lives. The work requires extreme athleticism. “It’s incredibly difficult labor, and I think that is part of the reason why they’ve had not great luck in recruiting the younger generation to