HIFF31 Opening Night Film: "Nyad"

Starring four-time Academy Award® nominee Annette Bening and two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster, NYAD marks the narrative feature directorial debut of Academy Award-winning filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (FREE SOLO, THE RESCUE [HIFF 2021]). By 2010, Diana Nyad (four-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening) had long been a singular success, breaking records and becoming a national sensation 35 years earlier with notable swims around Manhattan and from the Bahamas to Florida before enjoying a prominent career as a sports journalist. But after three decades away from the water, the former marathon swimmer finds herself consumed with completing the excursion that had always eluded her: the 53-hour, 110-mile trek from Cuba to Florida popularly known as the “Mount Everest” of swims. Together with her best friend and coach Bonnie Stoll (two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster), the sixty-year-old Diana begins what would become a harrowing four-year journey of intense training amongst unpredictable setbacks. Determined to become the first person to complete the swim without a shark cage for protection, Diana works with Bonnie to recruit a dedicated team that navigates the dangerous open ocean, unrelenting weather, and emotional obstacles that threaten to derail a lifelong dream.