Princetonians Photo: Perfect Picture

Photo: Jordan Strauss / AP

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi ’00 is no stranger to true stories too wild to be made up. With her husband and collaborator, Jimmy Chin, she directed various highly praised movies including The Rescue and Oscar-winner Free Solo (Vasarhelyi’s pictured here at that award show). Their latest film, Nyad, tells the story of marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, who in 2013, at the age of 64 and on her fifth attempt, successfully swam 110 miles from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida, in 53 hours. “There’s something about Nyad that empowered me to be myself,” Vasarhelyi says. Nyad is streaming now on Netflix. Read more about Vasarhelyi and Nyad.