Dave Not Coming Back - video preview

In less than a month, on 11 September, an extremely interesting documentary film “Dave Not Coming Back” will have its premiere. The production tells the story of David Shaw – an Australian technical diver who died on 8 January 2005 in the flooded South African cave Boesmansgat.

David Shaw’s story is well known among technical diving enthusiasts. On 28 October 2004, after only 5 years of training, he descended in closed circuit to the bottom of the legendary cave(then considered the deepest in the world – ed.) Boesmansgat, breaking four world records in the process.

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During this dive, at a depth of 260 metres, Dave came across the corpse of another diver, 20-year-old Deon Dreyer, who died during a dive on 17 December 1994.

We knew that there was a corpse of another diver there. But we did not expect to find it. We were both well aware that we would go back there and bring the body to the surface. – Don Shirley

After the dive, Dave and Don make a phone call to Deon Dreyer’s family. From this point, things move at lightning speed. A team of 8 divers securing the dive is organised, as well as a filmmaker to collect footage of the extremely demanding and difficult operation to retrieve the body from the cave floor. Logistics, the necessary equipment and gases, everything is organised as it should be.

Unfortunately. No one could have expected to see Dave alive again after the plunge….

Dave Not Coming Back, is a story of loss and grief in which ego and altruism, pride and self-control, risk-taking and spirituality go hand in hand. A chain of paradoxical choices that lead to a long-anticipated tragedy, but which could not have been prevented.

Written and directed by: Jonah Malak
Producer: Audrey-Ann Dupuis Pierre, John Malak
Cast: Don Shirley, David Shaw, Ann Shaw, Gordon Hiles
Duration: 94 min

David Shaw’s story is told in the book “Darkness” and in the 2015 documentary “Immersed in Boesmansgat”, which presents never-published footage from South African television. Both have been published and are available on the Polish market.