Water Baby
2019 · 8m · New Zealand
Directed by Katherine McRae
Genres: documentary, family
Tones: contemplative, tender
Freediving champions William Trubridge and Sachiko Fukumoto prepare to welcome their baby with a water birth at the family home.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a birth film that refuses the clinical or the saccharine—two elite athletes meeting their own vulnerability in eight minutes, no score, no manipulation. Genuinely unsure what to do with something this honest, which probably means it's working.
McRae positions the water birth within a lineage of intimate documentary practice while honoring the specific discipline and precision her subjects bring; the formal restraint—letting preparation and presence speak—is exactly the kind of observational rigor that deepens with rewatching.
The decision to hold on Sachiko's face in the water—breath held, eyes open, the moment before—rather than cut away or underline it emotionally, is the entire film: one breath of trust that makes everything else possible.