Few stories carry the weight of a pearl’s. Formed in darkness and the only gemstone raised by a living organism, the South Sea pearl is one of nature’s slowest and most improbable acts of creation, and 'Beneath the Surface' was commissioned to tell that story in full as a feature length documentary worthy of the world’s oldest pearling family. Filmed across twenty production days spread over two years, the production took its crew twenty metres underwater alongside professional pearl divers, living onboard the pearling vessels for days at a time, along crocodile infested shorelines in the remote shark infested waters of East Arhemland (NT) and Broome (WA), and into the contrasting worlds of Australian Traditional Owners on Country and the rarefied heights of the international pearl auctions in the heart of Tokyo. Across history, harvest, danger, indigenous connection and the long passage from oyster to jeweller, the film stands as the definitive record of a family, a craft and a pearl that has travelled from the depths of the Australian ocean beds to the display cases of the world’s leading jewellery houses.