Women Behind The Scenes

The Swimmers: Director and Co-Writer Sally El Hosaini on Discovering Your Directing Style

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Episode notes

Welsh-Egyptian director and writer Sally El Hosaini is the director and co-writer of BAFTA nominated ‘The Swimmers’, a moving biographical drama that follows two teenage Syrian refugees who swim alongside a sinking dinghy full of refugees, guiding it to safety.

As a writer and director of Welsh and Egyptian heritage, Sally didn’t know she wanted to work in film until, as a bored Arabic Language and Middle Eastern Studies university student, she realised that she wanted to pursue a career that combined ‘images, words and people’.

She started out as a ‘do-it-all’ self-shooting AP, an experience she describes as ‘film school’, and ended up coming on board as a co-writer with Jack Thorne on ‘The Swimmers’ because she wanted to help create a genuine story for her teenage self.

However, ‘The Swimmers’ nearly didn’t come to fruition. Its production hampered by the pandemic, it was in part because of Sally’s ability to keep the faith and rally those around her that it finally hit our screens in 2022.

In this episode, Sally talks about the process of learning to let go of her expectations, and the beautiful, spontaneous discoveries that she made as a result of trusting that her path would find her.

In this episode Sally shares her advice on: