A magical film that explores the wonders of the deep sea through the eyes of a team of scientists and an underwater robot called Isis will be shown in selected cinemas across the UK next month.<\/p>\n
The documentary, How Deep Is Your Love, offers a playful, irreverent and bittersweet look at our anthropocentric view of Earth, as it switches perspective from humans to deep sea animals and back again. It follows a research team from the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London, who sail for 12 days to reach a remote region called the Clarion Clipperton Zone,<\/a> a biodiversity-rich area of the Pacific between Hawaii and Mexico. It takes Isis five hours to make the 3-mile (5km) descent to the bottom of this harsh world, where sunlight cannot penetrate, and where nodules rich in minerals mark it out as a hotspot for industrial mining.<\/p>\n A carnivorous sponge, Axoniderma mexicana, photographed during a recent expedition to the NE Pacific abyss and found in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Photograph: National Oceanography Centre\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n It is a race against time for the scientists to identify new species before deep sea mining threatens to wipe out fragile ecosystems for ever. Scientists estimate that only 0.001% of the deep sea floor<\/a> \u2013 categorised by some as more than 500 metres below the sea\u2019s surface, where sunlight fades to total darkness \u2013 has been observed by humans.<\/p>\n The film is an ode, says director Eleanor Mortimer, to the taxonomists and biologists who spend \u201chours and hours counting the legs of a minuscule animal you can\u2019t even see with the naked eye\u201d and to the strange creatures of the abyssal plain, of which we know so little. Even when painstakingly identified, and DNA collected, it can take up to 14 years to name a species, Mortimer says.<\/p>\n Eleanor Mortimer at the premiere of How Deep Is Your Love at the Margaret Mead film festival, New York, in May 2025. Photograph: Zuma Press\/Alamy<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the challenge of the deep sea,\u201d says Mortimer, who shares the scientists\u2019 desire to demystify life in the deep. \u201cMost people never go there, and yet it\u2019s a huge part of our planet we need to connect with. That was the motive behind the film. I want people to fall in love with the deep sea, I want people to connect with it.\u201d<\/p>\n She became \u201cobsessed\u201d with the region, but could not work out how to make a film until, by chance, she met Muriel Rabone, the film\u2019s science adviser and co-producer, who told Mortimer about the NHM team.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir love and curiosity and excitement have become infectious,\u201d says Mortimer.<\/p>\n Most of the film takes place at sea, or at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) <\/a>in Jamaica, which regulates activities in the seabed beyond national jurisdiction.<\/p>\n While How Deep Is Your Love does not shy away from complex questions of humanity\u2019s ever-swelling appetite for nature\u2019s resources, it is neither an activist anti-exploitation film like Seaspiracy<\/a> or a nature-based, David Attenborough Blue Planet<\/a>-style documentary. Instead, Mortimer\u2019s dreamlike narration poses philosophical questions of the nature of our planet, while sharing the scientists\u2019 sense of wonder, as they watch a series of screens linked to a camera 5,000 metres below. \u201cOh, I love this sea cucumber,\u201d says one, as a neon pink sea creature, dubbed \u201cBarbie Pig\u201d, comes into view.<\/p>\n A ping pong sponge \u2026 Photograph: Smartex Project\/Nerc<\/p>\n Other brightly coloured amorphous creatures are given names like Headless Chicken Monster and Psychedelic Elvis Worm. There is a poignant moment, soundtracked by the melancholy strains of Portishead\u2019s Glory Box, which records a dilemma the scientists face: to be studied, a species has to be brought to the surface, a journey the life form cannot survive. \u201cI feel a bit like the Nicole Kidman character in Paddington,\u201d says one researcher: \u201cI want that bear in a jar on my desk!\u201d Another admits to dreaming of tucking sea cucumbers into bed.<\/p>\n In a final twist of fantasy, Mortimer brings deep sea animals and humans into the same world. The ghostly stars of the expedition are superimposed on the corridor walls of the ISA \u2013 which earlier this year once again concluded negotiations without a regulatory framework and with significant gaps<\/a> in the data needed to establish environmental thresholds for mining \u2013 and in the streets of London at night.<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps the connections made through the film can trigger something like empathy,\u201d says Mortimer.<\/p>\n