After a delay of more than two years, Into the Deep, a documentary that revolves around Danish inventor and convicted murderer Peter Madsen, finally has a release date. Check out the trailer.
Back in 2020, the original version of Into the Deep premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, with a global debut scheduled for May of that year. However, following that screening, certain individuals associated with the film made protests against it, resulting in two participants being removed from the film and another remaining in it but digitally disguised at their request.
Now in 2022, the documentary will finally be made available to a worldwide audience.
Into The Deep, a Netflix Film, launches globally on Friday, September 30, exclusively on Netflix. (You can set a reminder for it now.)
It all started back in summer 2016, when Australian filmmaker Emma Sullivan (The Keeper of Small Things) began documenting the life and work of Peter Madsen, a charismatic Danish inventor who was famous in Denmark for building a homemade, crowd-funded submarine. Engineering and science students who were captivated by his energy and wild ambitions flocked to his workshop in Copenhagen. At that time, Madsen was attempting to become the world’s first amateur astronaut by constructing his own space rocket.
On August 10, 2017, Sullivan filmed Madsen as he prepared to take a Swedish journalist, Kim Wall, on a trip in his submarine. It was on that voyage that Madsen brutally murdered Kim Wall and disposed of her remains overboard. Notwithstanding its savagery, this was a carefully planned and premeditated crime, and some of Madsen’s preparations had been unwittingly recorded by Sullivan’s camera.
Using a year’s worth of observational footage, Sullivan’s film provides an unprecedented portrait of an apparently charming eccentric who turns into a murderer before our very eyes. It also shows us the innocent enthusiasm of the amateur space mission and tracks the impact of Madsen’s crime on his supporters as they slowly grasp the true nature of the man they called a friend and mentor.
Denial and disbelief turn to shock and disgust as they question the trust they placed in Madsen, reinterpret seemingly innocuous events they witnessed, and reckon with their own feelings of shame and complicity in the horrendous events that took place onboard the submarine that summer night in Copenhagen — all as they prepare to face Madsen in court and provide the damning testimony that secures his conviction.
As Into The Deep reveals, some of the film’s rushes would become crucial for the prosecution in the trial of Madsen in March 2018. He was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Said Emma Sullivan, Director, Into the Deep:
“This is a very personal story to me. When I started this project I met a group of people, who wanted to be part of something positive with someone they admired at the helm. But then the unbearable happened. When you are suddenly pulled into such a nightmare it changes your life forever. The film is a testimony of the people who were close to Madsen as they slowly grasp the true nature of the man and the terrible crimes he committed.”
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