Dir. Bojana Burnać - 2017 - Croatia - Languages: Croatian, English - Subtitles: English

Goran is the world champion in free diving – a man whose most important moments in life take place underwater and whose willpower goes beyond his humanity, in order to seemingly find a place for himself in eternity. His journey is paved with silence and concentration, required by daily encounters with transience. To remain the best in what he does, every day he challenges his boundaries, risking to cross them and be irreversibly punished. My Life without Air conveys the feeling we have when we take a dive into the blue – the complex mixture of excitement, fear, uncertainty and power accompanied by the buzzing silence.

"I hold my breath. I sink deeper and deeper into relaxation of body and mind, as though I don’t have them, until the first diaphragm contraction reminds me that my body wants to breathe. Every new contraction gets more painful and it is growing harder to stay relaxed. My body would like to cramp in pain, but I don’t allow it. The oxygen level in my body is dropping. First all the muscles lose oxygen and start to hurt. They are followed by internal organs. Blood circulation centralises and transports oxygen only to the heart and the brain, the only organs keeping me alive. Relaxation is surrendering – I let myself go to my body and its responses. The pain is gone, I no longer feel a need to breathe. This state of body and mind is dangerous, it can lead to a loss of consciousness, but nevertheless it brings to mind a new existence which challenges the boundaries of living and flowing in time." Bojana Burnać