A documentary filmmaker has spent more than a year capturing people on film as they jumped to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The report said Eric Steel had filmed most of the 19 suicides that occurred at the San Francisco icon last year plus a number of attempted suicides.
But Golden Gate Bridge officials were considering taking action against Steel, who got permission to set up his camera on a bluff overlooking the landmark by claiming that he was working on a documentary about the ”powerful and spectacular interaction between the monument and nature”.
Steel revealed his real focus last week in an e-mail to bridge officials in which he asked permission to interview bridge workers and brass about the suicides for a movie ”about the human spirit in crisis”.
”My crew and I spent an entire year looking very carefully at the Golden Gate Bridge, running cameras for almost every daylight minute,” Steel wrote. ”We observed and filmed most of the two dozen or so suicides and a great many of the unrealised attempts.”
”It’s creepy,” said San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who is a member of the district board that oversees the bridge. ”Whatever the intention of the film, you can’t help but think of a snuff film.” – Sapa-DPA