With bombs and soldiers swarming around their home in Damascus, sisters Yusra and Sara decide to flee to Europe in pursuit of a better life. As highly competitive swimmers the girls were training to compete in the Olympics. Now instead of swimming in a pool, Yusra and Sara are trying out the Mediterranean. Other obstacles threatening to pull them under include a broken-down raft overloaded with passengers, barbed wire fences, dogs, police, and criminals eager to profit from desperate refugees. Still, the greatest currents that they are swimming against are in themselves.

This miraculous true story sheds light on a pressing global issue. Over 6 million refugees fled from Syria since 2011. Following the story of Yusra and Sara helps us to understand the issues that refugees face. The actors are sisters in real life, so their chemistry is authentic and comes from spending a lifetime together. It is heartwarming to witness Yusra and Sara holding onto life and their love for each other. The filmmakers are no slouches themselves, and there are some amazing scenes including a dance sequence in an empty warehouse.

Had the privilege to attend the European premier of the movie which will come to Netflix on 23rd of November. The movie is a very nicely paced dramatization of an amazing human achievement and story, it's amazing because of the nature how far they came along and its amazingly human because they've did it sheerly as human beings nothing more. You could even profanely say as "superheroes" to quote the movie directly. Nothing super fancy directing and editing here, just purely nice narration and sequencing of events dramatization and this is being done nicely by the director Sally El Hosaini. But the real magic and chemistry lies between the two lead actresses Manal and Nathalie Issa who are siblings in real life as well not just on the screen; this chemistry between them gives you the passionate punch which delivers effectively indeed. This movie is definitely an underdog testament, a very good one.

Beautiful, deeply moving, and thought-provoking film. The dialogue and performances felt completely authentic. The story was compelling from start to finish. The subject matter is obviously rather awful and it was sometimes painful to watch the suffering of these characters who seemed so real (and in fact were real), yet there was also so much humor and grit and so many moments of unexpected joy that the film never felt bleak. As a lap swimmer (though not a good one), I felt that the director and cinematographer really captured how compelling swimming -- a sport that might seem dull from the outside -- can be. It would be easy for a film like this to be mawkish, or bleak, or overwhelming, or preachy, but it was none of these things. Wonderful film. I hope it wins heaps of oscars.