Netflix, the popular streaming giant, is facing a defamation lawsuit over its fictionalized movie “No Limit” that suggests a real-life diver intentionally killed his wife. Francisco “Pipin” Ferreras, a celebrity couple with his wife Audrey Mestre in the world of free-diving, filed the lawsuit on Wednesday, March 29.
Mestre died in 2002 while diving in the Dominican Republic, after the device that was supposed to carry her to the surface malfunctioned. The film portrays Ferreras as a murderer, choking Mestre in a loving-making scene and both cheating on each other before an intense confrontation before the fatal dive.
Ferreras, who resides in Cuba, said in a phone interview, “I don’t know how people can do something like that. They turned the story around. They put it the way they wanted. That really hurt me.”
David M. Rosenthal, the writer-director of the movie, stated that the film was vetted by lawyers before production. Rosenthal also explained that “No Limit” is a fictionalized version of a story that was well-known to the public, from documentaries to many articles and books. “What I wrote is fiction, with fictional characters… I’m sure he’s trying to make a buck here by suing Netflix,” Rosenthal said.
“No Limit” was released in September 2022 and became the most-watched non-English film on Netflix. Despite the movie’s popularity, Ferreras insists that Mestre’s death was a tragic accident and is attempting to produce his own documentary about the story.
This is not the first time that Netflix has been sued for its content. In 2019, the streaming giant settled a lawsuit over its portrayal of the infamous Central Park Five case in the series “When They See Us.” The series received critical acclaim but was challenged for its depiction of the five men convicted of the crime.
Defamation lawsuits against streaming services and content creators are becoming more frequent. In 2021, Fox News was sued for $1.6 billion by Dominion Voting Systems over its false claims of election fraud. Similarly, the satirical news site The Onion faced a defamation lawsuit in 2020 over a satirical article.
