The film follows the harrowing journey of two young sisters from war-torn Syria to the 2016 Rio Olympics.
BAFTA has nominated Egyptian-Welsh filmmaker Sally El Hosaini’s ‘The Swimmers’ in the Outstanding British Film Category.
The 76th British Academy Film Awards will be held on February 19, 2023, at the Royal Festival Hall within London’s Southbank Centre.
The film is produced by Working Title for Netflix. It is directed and written by El Hosaini and co-written by Jack Thorne, based on a true story.
The film follows the journey from war-torn Syria to the 2016 Rio Olympics. Two young sisters embark on a harrowing journey as refugees, putting both their hearts and champion swimming skills to heroic use.
In 2015, after their house was destroyed in the Syrian Civil War, the Mardini sisters decided to flee the country. They made their way to Lebanon and then Turkey, where they arranged to be smuggled into Greece by dinghy. In the middle of the Aegean Sea, the engine failed 15 minutes into the trip, they had to swim for three and a half hours in a bid to stop the boat from capsizing.
Starring Nathalie Issa, Manal Issa, Matthias Schweighöfer, Ahmed Malek, James Krishna Floyd, Elmi Rashid Elmi, Kinda Alloush and Ali Suliman. Directed and written by Sally El-Hosaini and co-written by screenwriter and playwright Jack Thorne. Produced by Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner alongside Ali Jaafar and Tim Cole with Stephen Daldry executive producing.
