No Limit
ノーリミット：果てなき深淵
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A freediving champion and the student he sleeps with and endangers; loosely from the Audrey Mestre story.
Roxana learned to dive as a child with her grandfather. A student, she signs up for a freediving course in the south of France run by Pascal Gautier, a world champion in no limit, the most extreme and contested discipline of the sport. Pascal is magnetic and careless with women, and he is soon Roxana's lover as well as her teacher.
She sees at once how dangerous his world is. During a practice dive a young member of the team dies, and Stéphane, one of the divers, blames Pascal for sending him down. Roxana takes the dead man's place in the safety team, and Pascal sets a world record of 172 metres. Exhilarated, she tells her mother she is leaving her studies to follow him. A rival soon beats the record; going deeper, Pascal blacks out, and the doctors order him to stop. He turns his ambition on Roxana, who sets a French women's record and becomes the one the press wants. Pascal is proud of her and cannot bear it. Against the team's advice, he decides that she will attempt the no-limit record of 180 metres. While she trains, he cheats on her, and she turns to Tom, a safety diver on the team. When she tries to leave, Pascal smashes a mirror with his fist, and she stays. He learns about Tom.
On the day of the dive Tom checks her equipment, then sees Pascal handling the air tank that is meant to inflate her lift bag at the bottom and carry her up. Pascal kisses Roxana before she goes down. At 180 metres the tank is empty. Tom manages to get the bag working, but too late: she is dead when she reaches the surface. Questioned by the police, no one on the team says what went wrong, and as Tom leaves through the airport, Pascal watches him from a distance. Her grandfather scatters her ashes at sea. The film closes with a dedication to Audrey Mestre, the French freediver who died on a record attempt in 2002.
Starring
Camille Roweas Roxana
A student who dived as a child with her grandfather, drawn into competitive freediving and into a consuming relationship with her teacher.
Roxana’s story
Roxana's father took his own life when she was twelve. Later she tried to take her own, and her grandfather, who taught her to dive, saved her. A marine-biology student, she signs up for Pascal Gautier's freediving course and is soon his lover. When a young diver on his team dies, she takes his place and, over her mother's objections, leaves her studies to follow Pascal. Grounded, he makes her a competitor, and when she sets a French women's record he cannot bear the attention she gets. He cheats on her, she turns to Tom, and when she tries to leave he smashes a mirror and she stays. At 180 metres the tank meant to lift her is empty. She is dead when she reaches the surface; her grandfather scatters her ashes at sea.
Sofiane Zermanias Pascal
A no-limit freediving champion, magnetic and possessive, who cannot bear to be surpassed, least of all by Roxana.
Pascal’s story
Pascal Gautier teaches the course Roxana signs up for, and she soon becomes his lover and joins his team. He sets a world record of 172 metres, loses it within days, blacks out going deeper and is told to stop. He turns his ambition on Roxana and is proud of her until the press wants her more than him. Against his team's advice he sets her the 180-metre record, cheats on her while she trains, smashes a mirror when she tries to leave, and learns about Tom from a text. On the day he is seen handling the air tank meant to lift her, and he kisses her before she goes down. The tank is empty. He tells the police nothing, and at the airport he watches Tom leave.
César Domboyas Tom
A safety diver on Pascal's team who falls for Roxana and checks her equipment on the day of her record attempt.
Tom’s story
Tom teaches on Pascal's course, and there is something between him and Roxana from her first day, though she chooses Pascal. On the team he is a safety diver. When Roxana learns that Pascal is cheating on her she turns to Tom, and they grow close; Pascal finds out from a text. On the morning of her record attempt Pascal tells Tom he still counts on him. Tom checks her equipment, then sees Pascal at the air tanks and tells him they have already been checked. At 180 metres the tank is empty. Tom gets the lift bag working, too late. Questioned by the police, he says nothing of what he saw, and as he leaves through the airport Pascal watches him.
Laurent Fernandezas Stéphane
A diver on the team who blames Pascal for a young diver's death and warns against bringing Roxana into danger.
Why it matters
No Limit tells a love story as the slow tightening of control: a teacher who is also a lover, who takes pride in a young woman's gift until it outshines his own, then decides where she will go and how deep. It borrows the outline of a real death. Audrey Mestre drowned during a record attempt in 2002, on a dive supervised by her husband, Francisco "Pipin" Ferreras, who has faced intense criticism over its safety. The film calls itself fiction yet ends with a tribute to her. Ferreras sued Netflix, saying the film accused him of murder; in 2024 a judge dismissed the suit, finding that no reasonable viewer would take Pascal for him, while seeing no ambiguity about Pascal's guilt. What stays is the question of how far a woman can go when the person holding the line is the one she cannot leave.