Swimming Through
2022 · 16m · USA
Directed by Samantha Sanders
Genres: documentary, sports
Tones: contemplative, tender
As the brutal Chicago winter draws near, Deirdre, Helen and Jennefer – avid open-water swimmers – make a pact to continue through the snow and ice as the pandemic rages on.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a doc about suburban swimmers doing a normal hobby during a pandemic — exactly the kind of safe, consensus pick that makes festivals feel like they're checking boxes, not taking risks.
Sanders situates this squarely in the tradition of intimate observational documentary, with careful attention to ritual and the body as a site of continuity; the formal restraint serves the material's quiet dignity.
The decision to let the cold—and the swimmers' breath, the water's texture, the seasonal progression—do the emotional work instead of overlay is what transforms a premise about persistence into something genuinely moving.