Peabody Award winning filmmaker Jeff McKay plunges in and explores the evolution of the most popular sport in the world: swimming. For millions of swimmers worldwide, swimming has meant for so many – the splendor, the bravery, the horror and the eroticism of the aquatic experience.
In this beautifully shot film of submersive passion; from the ancient Greeks to the great heroic swimmers of the 20th and 21st centuries, water has inspired a devotion beyond athletics, a virtual cult of immersion. This hour long documentary takes its inspiration from Charles Sprawson’s landmark book, Haunts of the Black Masseur – the Swimmer as Hero, published in English, Italian and German. Sprawson swims Europe to uncover the secret lore of swimmers past and present. We see American open water Lynne Cox, survive her swim of the Antarctic as we celebrate other daring swim feats of yesterday.
'Haunts of the Black Masseur - the Swimmer as Hero' is a co-production between Edgeland Films and TVOntario in cooperation with ZDF Germany and ARTE France.
Haunts of the Black Masseur - the Swimmer as Hero
A 52 minute documentary
Produced by Edgeland Films
248 Princess Street Winnipeg Manitoba Canada R3B 1M2
Producer / Director : Jeff McKay - tel: (00) 1 204 775 4092 ext.25 email: edgelandfilms@mts.net
Executive Producer : Merit Jensen Carr - tel: (00) 1 204 775 1202 email: merit@meritmotionpictures.com
CHARLES SPRAWSON SWIMS THE HELLESPONT
Featuring:
Charles Sprawson
Linda Troeller
Lynne Cox
David Yudovin
Alison Streeter
Credits:
Executive Producer: Merit Jensen Carr
Producer and Director: Jeff McKay
Writers: Jeff McKay & Ruth DeGraves
Editors: Jeff McKay & Brad Caslor
Narrator: Ruth DeGraves
Original Music: Ian Hodges
Camera: Jonathon Bland Additional Camera: Jeff McKay
Production Manager: Sandra Moore
Commissioning editors for:
TVO : Rudy Buttignol
ZDF/ Arte: Sabine Bubeck-Paaz and Kathrin Brinkmann
HAUNTS OF THE BLACK MASSEUR – THE SWIMMER AS HERO
Synopsis
Peabody Award winning filmmaker Jeff McKay plunges in and gets behind the most popular sport in the world: swimming. For the millions of swimmers worldwide, this film explores all that swimming has meant for so many - the splendor, the bravery, the adventure and the sensuality of the aquatic experience.
This is a film of submersive passion; from the ancient Greeks to the great swimmers and divers of the twentieth century, water has inspired a devotion beyond athletics, a virtual cult of immersion. This hour long documentary takes its inspiration from Charles Sprawson's landmark book, 'Haunts of the Black Masseur - the Swimmer as Hero'. The viewer is invited to accompany Sprawson as we swim the Hellespont, the Tiber, the English Channel and Antarctica. We meet and swim with some of the top marathon swimmers in the world; Lynne Cox, David Yudovin and Alison Streeter and photographer Linda Troeller who share their passion for and obsession with the water. Join us on this journey driven by aqueous obsession.
Haunts of the Black Masseur- the Swimmer as Hero, is an Edgeland Films production, produced in participation with TVOntario, ZDF Germany in cooperation with ARTE France.
CHARLES SPRAWSON IN ROME SUBWAY
The producers gratefully acknowledge the participation of the Canadian Television Fund - License Fee Program, Manitoba Film and Sound, the Independent Film Channel (Canada), The Government of Manitoba - Manitoba Film and Video Production Tax Credit Program and the Government of Canada-Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit Program, CFCF Montreal and the Manitoba Arts Council.
T h e S w i m m e r s
Charles Sprawson
Charles Sprawson was born in Pakistan, and learned to swim as a child in India, where his British father headed a school for the education of princes. Educated in England and Ireland, Sprawson has worked and traveled around the world in pursuit of his ruling passion: swimming. He studied classics at Trinity College, Dublin, played squash for Ireland, and worked in a printing ink factory and as a swimming pool attendant in London. He taught literature in Saudi Arabia, became a director at a London fine art dealership, and all the meanwhile he kept on swimming and swimming.
He is now an acknowledged authority on the history, literature and lore of swimming, with articles for the London Magazine, the New Yorker, and the Sunday Telegraph to name a few. His book, Haunts of the Black Masseur – the Swimmer as Hero’ , which passionately explores the meaning that cultures from ancient Greece to the modern Olympics have attached to water, has been acknowledged as the finest book written on the subject of swimming. According to the library staff at the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale Florida, Sprawson’s Haunts of the Black Masseur – the Swimmer as Hero’, is the only book which has ever been stolen from the library.
Lynne Cox
Lynne Cox is amongst the world’s greatest long distance, open water swimmers. At the age of 15, she broke the men and women's world records for swimming the English Channel and then swam the Strait of Magellan, Cook's Strait, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the seven lakes of Mount Fuji. Over the past two decades, Lynne has swam all the major bodies of water in the world, many of which have not been crossed before, and most of which had not been done by a woman. She opened the US-Soviet border for the first time in 48 years by swimming The Bering Straight from Alaska to Siberia in 38-degree water.
In 2002, Lynne swam one mile through 32-degree water to the shores of Antarctica where she was greeted by a flock of penguins. The harrowing details of this swim are accounted in her renowned book, ‘Swimming to Antarctica’.
Lynne Cox is a passionate swimmer who faces the dangers of pushing human
endurance with humour and always with a strength of character that one seldom encounters. It is her personal desire to use her swims to foster international diplomacy. Her unequalled career has attracted the notice of devoted swimmers, medical researchers and world leaders. Lynne currently lives in California.
LYNNE COX SWIMS OFF CATALINA ISLAND – CALIFORNIA
David Yudovin
David Yudovin is a resident of Cambria and a Los Angeles businessman who loves the challenge of never done before swims. Yudovin is now recognized as the first human to swim across the deadly 22 mile Sunda Strait in Indonesia. Facing vicious whirlpools and thousands of jellyfish stings, Yudovin completed the swim in 10 hours. A remarkable feat for someone who suffered a near fatal heart attack induced by hypothermia during another long distance swim 15 years earlier.
As the holder of 6 World Records, Yudovin was inducted in the Swimmers' Hall of Fame in Ft Lauderdale, Florida in 2000. He is the oldest person to swim New Zealand’s Cook Strait and the only person to swim from Santa Cruz Island to the California Coast; as well as the first person to complete the 4.4 mile Java Strait swim through the hot and treacherous waters from Bali to Java. According to Yudovin, swimming is, “so rewarding and so fulfilling it almost tickles inside ”.
Alison Streeter
Alison Streeter has crossed the 21-mile English Channel more than 40 times, which places her at the top in regards to making the swim more times than anyone else in the world. As a Surrey resident, Streeter is a currency trader who is also regarded as Britain's most phenomenal long-distance swimmer. Past conquests include: Ireland to Scotland; the chilly waters of Scilly Isles to Lands End; Capri to Naples; Windermere; to and from and around the Isle of Wight; and the tidal length of the Thames, 43 and a half miles from Richmond to Gravesend and back (a feat river pilots said could not be done). She has swum with the dolphins along the shark-ridden waters off South Australia and several times around Manhattan Island in New York.
Linda Troeller
New York photographer Linda Troeller’s stunning photography is highly celebrated across Europe and she is recognized for her beautiful images of water which are atmospheric, transformative, relaxing and beautiful. Past credits include the publications of ‘Erotic Lives of Women’, ‘Spa Journeys’ and ‘Healing Waters’. Her most recent work is a photo essay of portraits of residents in the ‘Chelsea Hotel’ for Amica Magazine, Italy.
JEFF McKAY – Director/ producer/ co-writer; editor; camera
McKay brings a well developed musical and theatrical aesthetic to his film work. He spent his childhood and early adult life growing up in the surroundings of professional theatre and spent five years as a drummer in several touring and recording acts. Over the last twenty years he has worked as a film editor and director. His work has won awards for both directing and editing, including the celebrated Peabody Award for his first film, the feature-length documentary, Fat Chance. His second documentary he directed and edited, And So To Bed, is a one-hour look at the contemporary culture of the bed. McKay is also the filmmaker behind the one hour film entitled ‘Crapshoot – the Gamble with our wastes’, about the evolution of the sewer and the legacy of global sewage pollution. He lives and works in Winnipeg Canada with his partner Ruth DeGraves and two sons Leo and Finlay. He is currently making a film telling the story of Canada’s remarkable ballet company, ‘the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’.
MERIT JENSEN CARR - Executive Producer
For almost twenty years Merit Jensen Carr has worked with Canada’s foremost writers and directors to produce top quality award winning documentary and dramatic programming. She is passionate about telling stories which reflect humanity’s struggle to live creatively in the 21st century. She looks for stories which deal with subjects like the ethical issues around new technologies; experiencing the beauty of the natural world; stories which reflect genuine wit and the drama and the chaos of the human experience.
Most recently she is producing “Ballet Girls”, a three hour documentary Christmas Special for Bravo! inspired by the popular documentary feature “Spellbound” and produced in co-production with the Emmy award-winning production company, Vonnie Von Helmolt Film. Shot over the course of a year, Ballet Girls follows the progress of eight young girls who dream of dancing the part of Clara in Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet production of The Nutcracker.
From 2002 to 2004 Merit Jensen Carr produced the Gemini award winning documentary series, Recreating Eden for HGTV, a 26 part series which looks at the power of gardens to inspire lives. She was also executive producer for Haunts of the Black Masseur, a one hour documentary based on the cult book by Charles Sprawson for ZDF/ARTE and TVO. Prior to that Jensen Carr produced numerous award-winning documentaries for the National Film Board and the CBC series, The Nature of Things, including the Gemini nominated documentary, The Pill and Drug Deals: The Brave New World of Prescription Drugs which received the largest audience of any NFB film broadcast in 2002.
Over the years Merit Jensen Carr has worked with broadcasters around the world including the CBC, CTV, Turner Network Television, Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting, the Discovery Channel, ZDF/ARTE, TVO and many others who have come to rely on the creative approach, in depth research, and the care and respect Merit extends to everyone she works with and each project she produces.
Ruth DeGraves – Narrator/co-writer
Ruth is an accomplished host, narrator, screen/stage performer, and broadcast professional. Film and television projects include host/ performer on CBC Television’s, ‘Open Wide’, broadcast nationally, and acting roles in feature films, television and stage for over 25 years. Ruth has written many Radio documentaries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and also erotic fiction, short stories and novels for Virgin books’, Black Lace series.
