Netflix has a number of high-profile movies coming to the Toronto Film Festival, just as it did at Venice and Telluride, but a less heralded title with no instantly recognizable star names was chosen to open the fest tonight, and The Swimmers may turn out to be a surprise winner for the streamer when it debuts this fall.
It certainly reverses the curse of some of TIFF’s less successful opening-nighters.Ostensibly about a triumphant appearance at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, The Swimmers is really a moving and suspenseful story of the plight of refugees looking for a better life against all odds.
The power of this movie is it turns out to be an unlikely underdog sports saga about a couple of Syrian sisters who show remarkable swimming skill in school and who are so impressive they could be Olympic caliber.
But before you wonder if this will turn into a waterlogged Rocky, it is mostly a story about two young people who have no real chance of escaping a war-torn Damascus where frightening daily bombing by the Russians are destroying hope everywhere, and this turns out to be a stunning tale of refugees struggling to find their way to freedom, an epic immigration saga that is all the more powerful because it is 100% true.Toronto Film Festival Photo GallerySara (Manal Issa) and Yursa (Nathalie Issa) Mardini try to live as normal a life as kids can in a war-torn country, their family including mother Mervat (Kinda Aloush) and father Ezzat (Ali Suliman) is loving and their father, a former swimmer, acts as their coach.
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