Sundance ’26: A Childhood Displaced in Syrian Refugee Doc ‘ONE IN A MILLION’

Aleppo, Syria, 2025. A bombed out shell of its former self. Ten years prior, it was a flourishing city filled with bustling markets, food stalls, prayer, and congregation. Co-directors Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes chronicle that ten year transformation through the lens of Israa, an Aleppo native. Filming for One in a Million began in 2015, when Israa was an 11-year-old child, shortly before her family fled Assad’s Syria for Germany.

Death is an everyday occurrence here, so routine that one of Israa’s younger brothers nonchalantly jokes, “At least we’ll sleep forever in the grave.” One in a Million raises many important questions but one of its early and more haunting ones remains: How do you forget the images of mutilated bodies? It’s unclear if you ever can. War is awful, Israa admits, but what comes after might be worse.

What begins as a hopeful journey toward “a big house and baskets of food” quickly collapses into another kind of humanitarian crisis. Millions set out on foot, trudging through Eastern Europe, entangled in border bureaucracy and brutal weather. This is not the promised land they imagined. One in a Million captures this displacement in real time, the migration of entire populations fleeing the very governments meant to protect them. It’s humanitarian crisis as spectacle. On one of their first nights camped along the road to Germany, two children die of the cold. Israa sees things no child should.

Once they settle in Germany, hope flourishes again. The family begins to assimilate, settling into school, adapting to the language, finding a rhythm, and they seem better for it. Israa’s father embraces the promises of democracy (and the luxury of protest without fear of violence or death) with open arms. Her mother basks in the freedom to simply go for a walk. That fragile peace does not last long.

Azzam and MacInnes eschew easy answers, allowing the unfolding of Israa’s life to guide the story and our takeaway. Their wide-lens, ten year approach reveals not just the slow erosion of place but the quieter, more complicated erosion of identity.

But one thing we come to see is Israa’s gradual rejection of the patriarchy she fled, only to later slip back into something uncomfortably similar. At 16, she’s dating a man 7 years her senior, who nudges her toward religion and into wearing the hijab. It’s presented as choice, as freedom, but something about it feels… off. Like watching someone walk back into a fire they just escaped. Then again, maybe that’s the point. I don’t think it’s the directors’ job to tell us how to feel. One in a Million doesn’t push an agenda. It simply lets life unfold. And while others might see faith, agency, or even love, I walked away quietly shaken by things that maybe weren’t meant to shake me.

CONCLUSION: Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes’ documentary ‘One in a Million’ charts a ten-year span as 11-year old Israa flees Syria, only to return a decade later. A powerful portrait of the refugee experience and the challenges of assimilation.