In the early minutes of the profoundly moving new documentary One In A Million, 11-year-old Syrian refugee Isra’a is selling cigarettes with her father, Tarek, in a busy market square to help earn money for her family. Driven from their home in Aleppo, the tight-knit group is preparing to undertake the arduous journey to Europe, where they hope to begin a new life in Cologne, Germany. Despite the extremity of her circumstances, Isra’a seems to exude a kind of wild optimism about what the future might hold, though, in certain moments, it’s possible to see flashes of grave concern momentarily steal across her sunny features. 

The journey Isra’a takes over the next 10 years — traveling from Izmir, Turkey, to Germany and back once more to Syria — as she navigates the treacherous path from adolescence to adulthood serves as the throughline for directors Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes’ feature, screening as part of the Festival’s World Cinema Documentary Competition. The sensitive, insightful film illustrates with great nuance the complexities of the refugee experience, as tensions between traditional and Western culture emerge in Isra’a’s household. 

Tremendously honest and vulnerable, Isra’a matures before the cameras, growing into a young woman of grace and integrity. So when she takes the stage at the film’s January 23 premiere, the audience in the auditorium of the Yarrow Theatre erupts in cheers and applause — the sense of pure joy to see her in person is palpable. “I like the film very, very well, thank you!” she says, all smiles (the screening marked the first time she’d had the opportunity to see the completed documentary).  

Standing beside their singular subject, MacInnes and Azzam explain that, upon meeting Isra’a, they instantly understood that she was an ideal candidate for a documentary — she quite literally was one in a million. “We went to Turkey, where Syrian refugees were gathering to cross to Europe,” Azzam says. “We were filming in the square. Isra’a was selling cigarettes there, and we looked at each other, and we were like, Yeah. We just couldn’t leave her.” 

Adds MacInnes: “Something about Isra’a’s situation felt to us like it encapsulated everything about what was happening there [with regard to the Syrian refugee crisis]. There was the obvious vulnerability of her situation, especially being a child going through this, but at the same time, she was an agent. She was a participant. She was trying to fight and make her own way. We were really attracted to the strength of character that she had — and the wisdom beyond her years. But that’s all post rationalizing. There was just this emotional feeling we had meeting Isra’a. We just knew this was the person that we wanted to spend the rest of the film with.”

Following the family as they set out to seek asylum in Germany created a host of logistical challenges for the directors, who often feared they would become separated from Isra’a and her closest relatives, though they managed to remain in contact. Once the girl was in Europe, she would periodically reach out to Azzam and MacInnes to help them stay abreast of developments in her life: settling into a new home, learning a new language, attending a new school, making new friends, beginning to date. As she ages, she also finds herself at odds with a father she once adored; at the same time, Isra’a sees her mother, Nisreen, increasingly embracing Western ideas of freedom and independence. 

“Sometimes Isra’a would be going through a moment, and we’d get a text and we just knew one or both of us had to get out there,” MacInnes says. “You see sometimes in the film, it’s almost like we’re arriving into a new situation and then sort of endeavoring to explain what happened in the gap. But then there are other times when we knew significant moments were happening, and we knew we wanted to be there.” Adds Azzam: “Anytime something important would happen, Isra’a would call us to say, ‘Come, come.’”

As the project stretched out across the years, the filmmakers never lost the support of the film’s producers, including Will Anderson and Raney Aronson-Rath, who were both on hand for the premiere. They, too, were invested in Isra’a’s future. “We saw her grow up,” Aronson-Rath says.

Looking back, Isra’a says, laughing, that being trailed by a camera crew helped her forge friendships in Cologne a little bit faster than she otherwise might have — perhaps the other teens assumed she was a celebrity? One In A Million certainly proves that she’s mesmerizing on screen.