Dive
2023 · 21m · UK
Directed by Will Peppercorn
Tones: melancholic, surreal, tense
A deep-sea saturation diver returns to work on a North Sea oil rig a year after his estranged daughter died in a climate activist stunt gone wrong. Wracked with guilt, he must prepare for a dangerous dive while haunted by the tension between his livelihood in offshore oil and his daughter's environmental convictions.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Working-class oil rig diver grieves climate-activist daughter via dry-for-wet underwater sequences. Strong angle — class perspective instead of activist's — but the prestige scaffolding is heavy.
Peppercorn deploys the dry-for-wet technique while centering an oil-rig worker's perspective rather than the activist's — a sharper political instinct than the premise suggests. The form serves the inversion.
Short of the Week-curated at 21 minutes, dry-for-wet underwater technique on a working-class oil-rig diver story — the inverted-perspective choice (rig worker, not activist) is the structural risk that makes a climate short worth making. Quietly ambitious.
Reviews
With Dive, writer/director Will Peppercorn crafts an exceptional environmental thriller, creating a gripping narrative driven by a steadily mounting tension.
In the lead role, Billy Mack is simply incredible, and with very few lines, he conveys the layered and nuanced emotional turmoil of his character.
Festivals
- Encounters Film Festival 2025
- Camerimage
- Scottish International Festival of Cinema 2023, Best Actor (Billy Mack)