Resumo

This paper examines The Swimmers (2022), directed by Sally El Hosaini, focusing on the representation of refugee women and gendered experiences of displacement, memory and agency. Based on the real story of Syrian sisters Yusra and Sara Mardini, the film portrays forced migration through embodied experiences of flight, waiting, training and adaptation across different social and institutional contexts.
Drawing on feminist film theory and critical migration studies, the analysis explores how the film presents citizenship as an unstable and negotiated process shaped by borders, bureaucratic regimes and everyday practices. Attention is given to the ways women’s agency emerges through care, perseverance and relational ties, in contexts where access to formal political participation remains constrained.
The paper discusses how visual and narrative choices foreground memory, affect and the body as central elements in the cinematic construction of refugee experience. The sea, sport and movement operate as recurring motifs that connect trauma, endurance and visibility.
The analysis highlights the film’s contribution to contemporary debates on migration and gender in Europe and considers cinema as a space where questions of belonging, recognition and participation become visible beyond strictly legal frameworks.