Director's Statement Obsession. Such a sexy, delicious, little word. We all have them - the person we must possess, the situation we can't get over, the food we crave, the habit we can't break. Go on... admit it... you know what I'm talking about. In "Diving" I have tried to shine some light on my own obsessions. Strangely, I ended up with a kind of catharsis in making this film. After months of shooting and editing, I sat down to watch the final cut and suddenly found myself back to 13 years old, my whole psyche filled with that first, teenage, hopelessly-unfulfilled crush on someone whose name I can't even bring myself to mention. I heard a theory recently about heaven and hell, and the theory goes that heaven is what we are currently experiencing - this life. This theory says that, before we are born we are all "pending" souls, somehow hanging out in the ether, and then our reward, our heaven, is to be brought into materialization, so that we can experience life. Interesting isn't it, the thought that all experience, whether pleasure or pain, is indeed heaven, because it is life, it is the manifestation of something so tangible that we can now experience it, rather than just know it as a possibility. Perhaps then Stacey's thoughts of diving are really her experience of that heaven, the experience of just going through something, no matter how pleasurable or painful it is, to just "go so low, and come up again" being the goal of all life, all existence, to manifest into being our thoughts, dreams, obsessions, pleasure, pain. And what an amazing experience it was for me to see other people pick up some of my own odd obsessions and manifest them into their own reality. The cherry on top of this film for me was the sheer talent that each of my actors brought to the making of this film. How could anyone watch Sandra Young's Diana and not be totally charmed by her? How could anyone fail to be moved by Hannah Marks's and Anissa Primus Alston's genuine, heartfelt pain as Claire and Mich? And how could anyone miss the sheer intangible beauty of Louise Mintun's experience on the boat as Stacey? Or the exquisite mystery of Marilyn Hughes as The Observer? World take note... here are some great actors, ready to shine. So am I over that first teenage crush, you ask? Well, sort of. The truth is, somehow I no longer want to be over it. If I can see that sort of beauty in another person, then maybe that's a good thing, and maybe even the pain is a strange kind of pleasure. For one thing, it makes me know I'm alive, and that in itself is good. Jojo Barker Back to Press Kit