{"id":26262,"date":"2022-11-29T18:08:40","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T17:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1747654"},"modified":"2022-11-29T19:24:06","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T18:24:06","slug":"is-the-swimmers-on-netflix-based-on-a-true-story","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/is-the-swimmers-on-netflix-based-on-a-true-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Is The Swimmers on Netflix based on a true story?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Patrick Cremona\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 29 November 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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From Cool Runnings to Eddie the Eagle, films telling the stories of unlikely sporting heroes have often proven popular with audiences \u2013 and new Netflix movie The Swimmers very much fits into that genre.<\/p>\n

Penned by director Sally El Hosaini alongside prolific screenwriter Jack Thorne, the film tells the story of two swimming sisters who dream of representing Syria at the Olympic Games until they are forced to flee their war-torn country.<\/p>\n

Shining a light on the horrifying plight facing thousands of refugees around the globe, the film is much more than just a sporting underdog story \u2013 read on for everything you need to know about the true story.<\/p>

The Swimmers true story\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The film is based on the incredible true story of Olympian\u00a0Yusra Mardini and her sister Sara, who left war-torn Syria in 2015 with the intention of seeking asylum in Germany.<\/p>\n

Yusra and Sara were both aspiring Olympic swimmers, and their expertise came to the rescue when extremely perilous conditions in the Aegean Sea meant they had to heroically drag the boat which was carrying them and several other refugees to safety.<\/p>\n

When they eventually arrived in Germany, Yusra was especially determined to continue chasing her Olympic dream, and with help from coach Sven Spannekrebs she ended up representing the IOC Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Sara decided to switch focus, and after leaving her swimming aspirations behind, she started volunteering in Greece to help refugees like her make safe passage across the sea.<\/p>\n

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The Swimmers.<\/span><\/figcaption> Netflix<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

By and large, The Swimmers sticks very closely to the true story, with both Mardini sisters having been involved in the production \u2013 even though Yusra wasn\u2019t initially interested in the idea of a film.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Look, sorry, I\u2019m not going to do this right now,\u2019 but [producer] Ali Jaafar didn\u2019t give up,\u201d she explained. \u201cWe kept texting and saw films he had produced and thought he was a nice guy. Then the conversation started getting serious after we got the book [Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian \u2013 My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph<\/a>] out in 2018 and we signed a deal with Working Title.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early on in the process, screenwriter Jack Thorne met with Yusra and her coach Sven so that they could tell him their story, but he quickly realised the film needed to have a stronger focus on the relationship between the two Mardini sisters, and so asked if he could be introduced to Sara as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sat in a room together [with Yusra and Sven] and they told the story, but the idea that it\u2019s Yusra and Sven\u2019s story felt like the wrong angle to me,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know much about Syria or about being a refugee, but I do know an awful lot about being a sibling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so I was like, \u2018Who\u2019s Sara and when can I meet her?\u2019 I wanted to challenge the notion of what a refugee looks like, sounds like, and the more I got to know Yusra and Sara, the more it felt like a very noble relationship to me.\u201d<\/p>\n