Beyond the Raging Sea (2018)

Extreme athletes Omar Nour and Omar Samra accept the Talisker Atlantic Challenge, a 3,000-mile Atlantic Ocean crossing by rowboat with no assistance, and no stopping. Training and preparing for two years, Team O2 commit their adventure to the plight of displaced people crossing the Mediterranean with support from UNHCR and UNDP. After a slow start and bad winds, sickness, and exhaustion, day 9 dawns in a gale, 600 miles from shore. A rogue wave flips their boat and both men are in the water. With beacons failing, they wait and pray and struggle, fighting 45-knot winds, and riding 8-meter waves. For 13 hours, Samra and Nour face the same dangers and decisions of the desperate refugees to whom they dedicated their row. In this true-life adventure, survival demands a miracle or two. —Cinema Libre Studio