Diana Nyad was a swimming legend, a stellar athlete in the 1970s who achieved great things her sport, and then went on to a successful decades-long career in the broadcast booth for ABC Sports, ESPN and elsewhere.
But the new movie Nyad from Oscar-winning documentary filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo, The Rescue) isn’t about any of that. Rather, it’s a movie about a woman with a singular focus that seeks to plumb the depths of what drove her.
“Imagine knowing you could do something that no one else could do,” says Bening’s Nyad at one point in the trailer.
Logline: A remarkable true story of tenacity, friendship and the triumph of the human spirit, Nyad recounts a riveting chapter in the life of world-class athlete Diana Nyad. Three decades after giving up marathon swimming in exchange for a prominent career as a sports journalist, at the age of 60, Diana (four-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening) becomes obsessed with completing an epic swim that always eluded her: the 110 mile trek from Cuba to Florida, often referred to as the “Mount Everest” of swims. Determined to become the first person to finish the swim without a shark cage, Diana goes on a thrilling, four-year journey with her best friend and coach Bonnie Stoll (two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster) and a dedicated sailing team.
This film marks the narrative directorial debut of Oscar-winning documentary filmmakers Chai Vasarhelyi and Chin. NYAD is produced by Andrew Lazar and Teddy Schwarzman with a screenplay by Julia Cox, adapted from the memoir Find a Way by Diana Nyad. In addition to Bening and Foster, the cast includes Rhys Ifans, Ethan Jones Romero, Luke Cosgrove, Jeena Yi and Eric T. Miller.
Nyad debuted at Telluride and will be at Toronto, as well.
The film is being released in select theaters October 20 and will drop on Netflix November 3.
