Sally El Hosaini is bringing Olympian swimmer and Syrian refugee Yusra Mardini’s story to the big screen. Screen Daily confirms El Hosaini is directing “The Swimmers,” a biopic tracing Mardini’s heroic journey to Greece, and eventual stint at the 2016 Olympic Games. The project was originally announced in spring 2017 with “The Reader’s” Stephen Daldry at the helm.

In 2015, Mardini and her sister Sara saved themselves and the fellow refugees on their dinghy by jumping into the freezing Aegean Sea and swimming the boat to safety. The Mardini sisters, both competitive swimmers, had fled Syria and were en route to the Greek island of Lesbos when the dinghy began to sink. The sisters eventually settled in Berlin, where Mardini met a swimming coach who trained her for the Olympics’ inaugural Team Refugee. Her story came to light when she swam at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and won her qualifying heat.

Mardini is currently training for the 2020 Olympic Games. She also fights for refugees all over the world in her work as an activist and UNHCR goodwill ambassador.

Jack Thorne (“Wonder”) penned the “The Swimmers” and Daldry is serving as an executive producer. Casting is underway.

This will be El Hosaini’s second feature film. She received Berlinale’s Label Europa Cinemas prize and London Film Festival’s Best British Newcomer award for her feature debut, “My Brother the Devil,” a drama about British Arab brothers growing up in gangland London. El Hosaini has also helmed three episodes of “Babylon.”