“The Swimmers” tells the extraordinary story of two sisters, Sarah and Yusra Mardini, refugees from Syria who became Olympic champions.
In 2015 their home was destroyed during the Syrian civil war, so the sisters decided to leave the country. They went first to Lebanon, then to Turkey, hoping to cross the Aegean to get to Greece. But half-way across their dinghy’s motor died, unable to cope with so many passengers. With some of the others, the Mardini sisters swam beside the dinghy for three and a half hours to prevent it capsizing, thus saving those on board.
A year later Yusra competed as a swimmer in the Refugee Olympic Team (ROT) at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. In 2017 she became a “goodwill ambassador” for the UN High Commission for Refugees (France24).
In August 2018, working for an NGO helping refugees arriving on the island of Lesbos, Sarah was arrested and remanded in custody for “participating in a criminal organization”, “violation of state secrets” and “handling stolen goods”.
The director is Egyptian-Welsh Sally el-Hosaini, known for “My Brother the Devil” which, amongst other awards, won the World Cinema Cinematography Award: Dramatic at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The script is by el-Hosaini and Jack Thorne, whose credits include “Enola Holmes” and, with JK Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”.
Two Lebanese sisters and actresses, Manal and Nathalie Issa, will play the Mardini sisters. James Krishna Floyd, lead actor in el-Hosaini’s “My Brother the Devil”, is in the cast with Arab-Israeli actor Ali Suliman, Egyptian actor Ahmed Malek and Syrian actress Kinda Alloush. Filming for “The Swimmers” began in the UK, Turkey and Belgium, with a Netflix release slated for 2022.
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Sources: arabnews.fr, variety.com, egyptianstreets.com, en.vogue.me, france24.com
