Run Deep | "Sometimes the most unconventional spaces are actually the best places"

The intense grappling at the start of Run Deep turns into the powerful calm of the small, intricate moments when fastening a martial arts belt. Jamie Hull Greenwood’s film finds comfort in the contrasts and quiet in the conflicts. It’s a film that revels in an environment that is a place of opposites, vulnerability and strength.

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It even states: this is a strange kind of love story. Jamie’s love of martial arts is obvious, and his love of photography shines through, with a textured, frame-filled closeness that peers into the subject. And there’s a deeper love here, too.

“I had a mate who died,” Jamie says when he describes the making of Run Deep. It’s a powerful, unexpected statement. It was an event that changed the flow of the film.

Run Deep was intended to be called Still Waters, and it was a film about Jamie’s relationship with martial arts.

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“But my friend passed away. I’d known him since we were 13, and he killed himself. He was the third friend in two years that had taken their own life,” says Jamie.

During that time of grief, Jamie realised he wanted to have shared time doing martial arts with his friend – or engage in a physical activity together. To share the exertion and the physical experience – to show that there are different places you can find support.

“Still Waters stopped being called Still Waters and became Run Deep… because it runs super deep”

“Sometimes the most unconventional spaces are actually the best places,” says Jamie. “They’re the places where you find yourself, and I wish I could have done that with those guys. And for my friend who passed, it just hit me. Still Waters stopped being called Still Waters and became Run Deep… because it runs super deep.”

The film transformed from being about the rough and tumble of the martial art Jamie practises to something that is similar, but not the same. He had slated himself as narrator, too, but that responsibility was passed to Greg Burns. Jamie wanted this film to not be about him.

“For the first time, I decided that I wanted to make a film that challenged my emotional position,” says Jamie.

“But the whole purpose of this is to explain that actually you don’t have to be conventional. You don’t have to do things in a certain way. You can find community, comfort, love, friendship and companionship in the weirdest places.”

Run Deep follows Exeter-born metal artist Gage Conway, his journey into Brazilian jiu jitsu, and the benefits he found through martial arts.

The filmmaking process was something that Jamie could pour himself into. Most of Run Deep is anamorphic. Jamie wanted to manually focus on the action, so he went out and improved his skills.

“I needed to train myself to be a better photographer,” he says. Jamie has had plenty of experience working with mental health, but the process of making Run Deep hollowed him out. Part of that was digging deep to get the skill up.

It certainly works, with the physical intimacy seeping through the screen. And it’s an approach that is capturing an audience, picking up awards, including winning the New York Neorealism Awards for “best short documentary”.

” Everyone I encountered was just absolutely stunning”

“It’s the camaraderie in the whole Brazilian jiu jitsu community. Everyone I encountered was just absolutely stunning,” says Jamie, who was blown away by the support he was getting – especially when he explained the film was about mental health.

Brazilian jiu jitsu isn’t as traditional as the martial arts Jamie follows, but he spotted plenty of similarities.

“What it did have was similar moral positions in the sense of internal respect, discipline, calm. When it comes to martial arts, there’s a real illusion that discipline is sitting up straight and bowing and putting on a mask. In reality, true discipline is having the courage to put yourself in a situation that you don’t enjoy, and then learning from it.”

The subject of Jamie’s previous film, the artist Greg Ramsden, makes an appearance in Run Deep.

“Greg actually trained in martial arts with me for about 10 years. Greg talks very briefly about the relationship between painting and martial art.”

Along with the honesty the films strive for, there is another similarity: the narrative of your weaknesses becoming your strengths.

“It was probably my most personal film to date,” says Jamie.

At the moment, he’s working on another documentary, called For Those In Peril. It’s about lighthouses and the relationship between mariners and lighthouses, “and the idea of these isolated things holding light – it’s really about the care system.” But Run Deep was Jamie’s introduction to exploring mental health.

“I thought, let’s see where this takes me. And to be honest, I just bit off way more than I could chew.”

In a reflection of the martial arts theme of the film, Jamie had worked his was into and through an uncomfortable environment, which is what makes Run Deep deeply emotional, deeply personal and deeply universal.