Submergence is a love story that takes the movie viewers into the extremely different worlds of two protagonists, Danielle Flinders (Alicia Vikander) and James More (James McAvoy). They meet by chance in a remote hotel in Normandy where they both prepare for a dangerous mission. They fall in love almost against their will, but soon recognize in each other the love of their lives. When they have to separate, they find out that James works for the British Secret Service. He’s involved in a mission in Somalia to track down a source for suicide bombers infiltrating Europe. Danielle ‘Danny’ Flinders is a bio-mathematician working on a deep sea diving project to support her theory about the origin of life on the planet. Soon, they are worlds apart. James is taken hostage by Jihadist fighters and has no way of contacting Danny, and she has to go down to the bottom of the ocean in her submersible, not even knowing if James is still alive…

 

James McAvoy as James More who is involved in a mission in Africa

 

About the production

Wim Wenders (The Salt of the Earth, Wings of Desire) directs this romantic thriller based on the novel “Submergence” by J.M. Ledgard from a screenplay by Erin Dignam (The Last Face). Submergence stars James McAvoy (X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Split, X-Men: Apocalypse, Atonement, The Last King of Scotland) and Academy Award-winner Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl, Ex Machina). Cameron Lamb produced the film, along with Wim Wenders and Uwe Kiefer for Neue Road Movies in Germany, Jean-Baptiste Babin for Backup Studio in France and Juan Gordon for Morena Films in Spain.
 

	Alicia Vikander as Danielle Flinders beside James More

A multi-layered story that embraces some of life‘s most profound concerns, Submergence is based on the novel by J.M. Ledgard. A journalist who covered society and politics across Africa for The Economist magazine, Ledgard was inspired by his experiences living and working in Somalia.

“I was very interested in our lack of perspective of the planet we live on,” he says. “It is much bigger than we think it is, much more complicated than we think it is. At the same time it is much harder and tougher as well. I have always been obsessed with the oceans and the idea that there is clearly a lot more life in the ocean than there is on the surface, particularly the microbial life of bacteria, viruses and algae at very deep levels. This life outweighs all other life on the planet. It is older, it is tougher and stronger. And whatever happens to human beings, that life is going to keep on going. Of course we now know that we evolved from the bottom of the ocean; that is where life began, deep in the oceans.

 

 

The locations
With the cast set, Submergence began its challenging shooting schedule in March 2016 in several difficult locations around the world, including Toulon, Brest and the Normandy coast in France, Spain, Germany, Djibouti and the Faroe Islands. Studio work was done in Berlin and Madrid. Behind the scenes collaborators included cinematographer Benoît Debie, production designer Thierry Flamand, editor Toni Froschhammer, costume designer Bina Daigeler and composer Fernando Velazquez.

 

Director: Wim Wenders
Camera: Benoît Debie
Cast: Alicia Vikander, James McAvoy, Celyn Jones
Writer: Erin Dignam (based on the novel by Jonathan M. Ledgard)
Producer: Cameron Lamb
Production: Lila 9th Productions, Backup Studio, Neue Road Movies, Morena Films
Editing: Toni Froschhammer