The Swimmers

The Swimmers (2022) is Sally El Hosaini's drama about the Mardini sisters, and you can watch it online on iFILM. It opens in a Damascus pool during an air raid — two competitive swimmers whose ordinary ambitions are about to be torn apart by war.

Yusra and Sara leave Syria and push toward Europe through Turkey. When their overcrowded dinghy stalls in the Aegean, the sisters slip into the freezing water and swim for hours, dragging the boat full of refugees toward the shore of Lesbos. What follows is camps, border crossings, and finally Berlin, where a coach spots an Olympic-level talent in a girl the system only sees as a case number. Real-life sisters Nathalie and Manal Issa play the leads, and the resemblance gives every scene a documentary weight.

Made for Netflix, the film tracks actual events from 2015 to 2016, up to Yusra's race for the Refugee Olympic Team in Rio. El Hosaini keeps the sentimentality in check; the swimming here is less about medals than about staying afloat when the ground is gone. Stream The Swimmers (2022) online on iFILM.