Episode # 294 The Swimmers with Anna Smith and Savina Petkova

Anna Smith (Girls on Film podcast) and Savina Petkova (MUBI Notebook, Little White Lies) join Flixwatcher remotely to review Anna’s choice The Swimmers. The Swimmers is a 2022 biographical film directed by Sally El Hosaini that tells the incredible true story of Syrian refugee sisters Yusra and Sarah Mardini (played by real life sisters Nathalie and Manal Issa). The film begins in Damascus with both Yusra and Sarah as aspiring Olympic swimmers, against the backdrop of bombs their normal life is changed forever. With their cousin they leave Syria and take the perilous boat journey across the Aegean Sea in a dingy. When the boat is overloaded Yusra and Sarah swim alongside the boat to prevent it from sinking and saving the other refugees lives. Their journey to Germany continues overland and they eventually arrive Berlin where Yusra meets Sven who helps her to achieve her Olympic dream. The Swimmers is an unusual mix of incredible real-life story (the boat crossing) and underdog sports story (Yusra’s participation in the 2016 Olympics) which makes for a slightly uneven film. The film also takes a number of creative license decisions that lean towards a more Hollywood approach. Scores for The Swimmers were very high across all categories giving a very impressive overall score of 4.09.   [supsystic-tables id=293 Episode #294 Crew Links Thanks to Episode #294 Crew of Anna Smith (@annasmithjourno) and Savina Petkova (@SavinaPetkova) Find their Websites online at https://twitter.com/GirlsOnFilm_Pod and at https://twitter.com/deadline and at http://annasmithjourno.com/ and at https://twitter.com/kingsfilm and at https://twitter.com/FIPRESCI and at https://twitter.com/EuroFilmAcademy Please make sure you give them some love   More about The Swimmers For more info on The Swimmers, you can visit The Swimmers IMDb page here or The Swimmers Rotten Tomatoes page here. Final Plug! Subscribe, Share and Review us on iTunes If you enjoyed this episode of Flixwatcher Podcast you probably know other people who will like it too! Please share it with your friends and family, review us, and join us across ALL of the Social Media links below. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices