Sept. 29, 2013
In 1931, Britain’s most advanced submarine collided with a cargo ship off the coast of China and sank. Three hours later, six sailors surfaced, barely conscious. They were the first men ever to escape from a sunken submarine using a proto-scuba device. Their story hit headlines and went on to inspire a feature film. The miraculous escape changed marine safety forever. But their names, and their submarine, gradually sank into obscurity. Beijing-based scuba instructor Steven Schwankert was looking for nearby wrecks to dive when he found HMS Poseidon on a list of unexplored sites. His six-year search for the submarine started as a private obsession, but went on to challenge official accounts of the escape, and bring together the lost pieces of a story that touches on the history of Britain and China in the 1930s, the 1970s and the present day. Arthur and Luther Jones’ previous work includes A Farewell Song, a documentary about a group of retired Chinese musicians who reunite to perform a series of concerts outside of the state-backed music system. The film won the Special Jury Prize for Documentaries at the 2006 Syracuse International Film Festival. The British brothers have also made commissioned films for the Special Olympics movement and the World Expo, as well as TV commercials, including the following one for the Golden Grand Prix. They are both based in Shanghai, China. This is a brilliant film, and something I hope gets out to a really wide audience. It was just magic to talk to Arthur about his work, some of the issues facing film makers in China today, as well as up his coming projects and what brought him to both film making and China in the first place! You can find out more about The Poseidon Project at: http://www.poseidonprojectfilm.com
