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London (AFP) – Before participating in two Olympic Games, Syrian swimmer Yusra Mardini almost drowned in the sea while fleeing war in her country. She now hopes that a new film about her story will help raise awareness of what refugees experience.
Mardini, 24, believes ‘The Swimmers’, which chronicles the perilous journey through Europe she and her older sister Sarah undertook in 2015, has ‘an incredible message’ that will bring viewers ‘joy, hope, tears, sadness”.
The film, which will be shown in select UK cinemas ahead of its world premiere on Netflix next Wednesday, shows the two sisters who separate from their parents and younger sister, who have been left behind in Syria, to seek refuge in Germany.
Once there, Yusra managed to resume swimming training and qualified for the Rio-2016 games, and five years later for the Tokyo games as part of the refugee team.
“When we set out to make this film (…) we wanted it to have an impact,” he explained during a screening in London.
“It is very important that it shows what a real refugee is like. We want to be DJs. We want to be architects. We want to be doctors, engineers (…) and we are, even before coming to the West, ” He added.
With an original band composed by the Australian singer Sia and Arabic music, the film tells the experience of crossing the Aegean Sea on an overcrowded rubber dinghy that leaks water and is in danger of capsizing.
“Safe place”
The sisters, among the few people on board who knew how to swim, splashed in the water for hours to lighten the weight of the boat until it could get close to shore.
“It made us very, very scared, even though we are swimmers,” Yusra recalled, concerned at the time that there was a child in the boat, even though she was only 17 herself. “It’s the sea, it’s not the pool and you don’t know what to do.”
Arriving in Berlin, she joined a swimming club and met the coach who helped her qualify for the Olympic games.
“The swimming pool was my safe place, even in Germany,” she explains, assuring that it helped her “integrate”. “I’ve met a lot of people and they’ve become like family to me,” she recalls.
The Mardini sisters have entrusted their story to British writer Jack Thorne and Welsh-Egyptian director Sally El Hosaini. Now the French-Lebanese sisters Nathalie and Manal Issa have played them on the big screen.
“They’re from Lebanon. They understand what we’ve been through. And I think that was very, very important,” she says.
“High Voice”
Yusra and Sarah were later able to take their parents and younger sister to Germany, where the family now lives.
However, Sarah and other activists face criminal charges in Greece – including espionage, forgery and aiding a criminal organization – accused of helping migrants cross the Aegean Sea.
The 27-year-old Syrian, who was also a competitive swimmer, returned to the Greek island of Lesbos as a volunteer and reportedly joined the search and rescue NGO Emergency Response Center International (ERCI), which operated there between 2016 and 2018.
“The charges weren’t right and she faces up to 25 years in prison, not just herself, but other people as well. And those people were just volunteers,” Yusra says. “We’re just trying to help refugees, it’s very sad.”
Contacted by AFP, the Greek embassy in London did not comment on the matter.
Yusra – a goodwill ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) since 2017 – acknowledged that at first she had misgivings about making the refugee Olympic team, but she overcame them.
“I realized that it wasn’t just about me anymore (…) it was about the refugees, it was about representing them,” he says. “After that, I had a powerful voice and I was like, ‘You know what? Why not use that?’” she says of her decision to make the film.
© 2022 AFP
