Dir: Marco Orsini | Doc With Omar Nour and Omar Samra, Made in conjunction with the UN Refugee Agency | 80′
Billed as a heroic tale of rescue Marco Orsini‘s documentary Beyond the Raging Sea attempts to jump on board the current wave of sympathy for the refugee boats in chronicling how two inexperienced mariners embarked on a cross Atlantic voyage in a rowing boat – admittedly a top of range piece of kit – but what was the point of this foolhardy act of ‘derring do’?
Told in a flood of talking heads – mainly by the guys themselves – Egyptians Omar Nour and Omar Samra – we hear how in 2017 they decided to take part in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge – a sort of seabound equivalent of the Paris-Dakar race – but in rowing boats, across the Atlantic from La Gomera in the Canaries to Antigua; a 3,000-nautical-mile, 40-day undertaking.
The going was rough and the guys soon found themselves in difficulty when their vessel capsized in ferocious seas – and there’s a great deal of jaw-dropping thrashing about in the wet that gives the film a certain dramatic heft, although the fact they lived to tell the tale slightly takes away the tension. It seems the feckless duo did it out of solidarity with the refugees whose testimonies then feature in a 10-minute tacked-on coda. @MeredithTaylor
IN CINEMAS FROM 19 APRIL 2024