Is 'The Swimmers' Based on a True Story? Netflix Film Origins Explained

In The Swimmers, Yusra Mardini has a dream: to represent Syria at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. It is a dream she focuses on even as war breaks out in her country and she is forced to flee her home with her older sister Sara in a bid to get to Europe and seek safe passage for the rest of their family as refugees.

It stars real-life sisters Nathalie and Manal Issa as Yusra and Sara, respectively, and follows their characters on their arduous journey from Syria to Europe and the dangers they face as refugees.

The creative team behind the Netflix film spoke to Newsweek at the BFI London Film Festival about making the drama and the story it is based on.

Is 'The Swimmers' Based on a True Story?

In short, yes. Yusra and Sara Mardini's journey from Damascus to Berlin as refugees really did take place in 2015. They were aged 17 and 20 at the time. They left Syria's capital in August 2015 and went via Lebanon, Turkey, and Greece to reach Berlin in September of that year.

Their journey was a difficult one. At one point, the sisters were being smuggled from Izmir in Turkey to Greece in an overcrowded dinghy with other refugees when the raft's motor broke because of the weight and they began sinking.

It was thanks to the Mardini sisters' swimming skills that they all survived the journey. Seeing the boat in peril, the pair jumped off with two others to lighten the load and swam across the Aegean Sea for several hours while tied to the raft. That helped save the lives of 18 people.

Yusra also made it to the 2016 Rio Games, where she represented the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team and was coached by Sven Spannekrebs (played by Matthias Schweighöfer in the film).

She spoke with Newsweek about making the movie with director Sally El Hosaini, and told how she didn't originally want her story to be made into a film but was eventually persuaded by producer Ali Jafaar.

"When I was selected to go to the Olympics, with the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team, I got so many requests for a book and for the movie, and I put them all on hold until after the Olympics. I got so many people saying 'no one's going to be interested in the story, even after the Olympics,'" Yusra said.

"I still said 'no, I don't want to do any movie or a book.' And then there was this one producer that did not leave me alone. His name was Ali Jafaar—he's Arabic and he really tried in every way to reach out and to say that Working Title [Films] is interested in making the movie, and so on."

Yusra Mardini said that after meeting Jafaar, Stephen Daldry, Jack Thorne, and El Hosaini, she felt that she could "trust them" so she "went with it."

El Hosaini was particularly keen to make a film that highlighted the story of Yusra and her sister Sara, who is currently facing criminal charges of smuggling, espionage, and fraud in Greece over assisting refugees on the island of Lesbos while working with the Emergency Response Centre International.

"I knew Yusra from the news. I'd read about her in Rio, but I didn't know about Sara," El Hosaini said. "And when I read that first draft of the script, I realized it was a film about two heroes, not just the obvious hero sitting beside me here—but her sister Sara, the unsung hero.

"That sister relationship and the fact that it was about these young, strong Arab women—and such an inspirational story—there was no way that I couldn't do it."

Yusra on Her Journey and How She Helped Actor Nathalie Issa

Yusra reflected on what it was like to see her and her sister's story retold in the drama, sharing how it was at the Olympics that she realized their experiences could help so many others.

"I was always interested in swimming—I wanted to swim, swim, swim. I wanted to be an Olympic swimmer, and when [the war] happened, I was still struggling, you can see in the movie—with my identity, with being a refugee," Yusra said.

"I had misconceptions about it since I was young. I was not taught what a refugee [was], so when I took on the role [as a member of the Refugee Olympic Team], I realized it's about who I am as an athlete, it has nothing to do with my story or what happened to me.

"Did I work hard all my life to earn the spot as a swimmer at the Olympics? Yes. And when I went there, I realized that it was not about the gold medal only. I can change something way bigger in life and that was my gold medal already. Just to be able to help thousands and millions of refugees around the world.

"I represented Syria, I represented so many countries and people around the world under the Olympic flag, which is there for peace, for unity, for the values of sport. So everything has been so surreal, but I always wanted to be this swimmer."

Nathalie and Manal Issa spoke to Newsweek, with the former explaining that her real-life counterpart gave her good advice when they first met before going into production.

"I didn't really want to ask her everything about the journey and everything. I really wanted to know her, how she is now in her life, and how she behaves," Nathalie said.

"And after five minutes of meeting each other, it was really smooth. We really got along and it was enough for me to love her and to love the character in order to portray it.

"But also she said something to me. She was like, 'I don't want you to only portray me. I want you to portray all the refugees.' So I didn't want to go like 'OK, she does this with her hair so I'm gonna do this with my hair.' No, I'm just talking about someone who went through something hard, but that a lot of people go through."

The actor said: "What I really loved first was the script and how I felt towards her character. I felt I was understanding her. I felt like even if those around her were not really understanding, I felt connected to her and I really wanted to do it.

"I read [her] book and everything, and I thought that was a really beautiful, inspirational story. It's just a connection I felt and it's so rare to feel a connection towards someone, so I really wanted to portray it."

Manal added that she really enjoyed getting the chance to star opposite her real-life sister, saying: "I think it's nice to have a story about sisterhood, and I liked the fact that we are sisters and acted in it. I think it added more layers than I could ever imagine acting with someone."

Swim coach Spannekrebs and actor Schweighöfer also spoke to Newsweek about the film, with Schweighöfer sharing how he'd "always wanted to be a swim coach" and so it "was a dream, a bucket list thing" to be part of a film like The Swimmers.

"I think we had not so much time [together], but it was intense. It was very intense, so we directly went into it," Spannekrebs told Newsweek of working with his onscreen counterpart.

"The second [we met] we just fell in love immediately," Schweighöfer said. "That was great. I mean, he was a great coach, [he's] still great."

Spannekrebs explained that he also worked with El Hosaini quite a lot on building the film's narrative in its second half, when Yusra began her training to get to the Olympics.

He spoke with the director about "how things went, and how I felt in this moment, or how I saw the girls when they arrived," so that she could "get a feeling about the things that happened" in reality.

The Swimmers is out on Netflix now.