"In Cologne, the family is greeted with a small but comfortable new home, and Israa enters a school where her classmates and teachers seem kind and curious to learn more about her. Over the years, however, things change. Israa begins to feel the prying eyes of others, and she begins to react against her family, in particular her father, Tarek, with whom she was once incredibly close but who now seems like a man out of time and place, wedded to traditions left behind."
"The year was 2015, and the modern refugee crisis was in full force. But while One in a Million (premiering in the World Cinema Documentary section at Sundance) movingly depicts Israa's odyssey, it truly comes into its own after the family arrives in Cologne, Germany. A title like One in a Million may suggest a rather remarkable stroke of luck - and indeed, Israa and her family were fortunate in that their journey, while certainly harrowing, didn't end in tragedy as so many others' have."
An 11-year-old named Israa fled Aleppo after a missile destroyed her family home and sold cigarettes in Izmir to raise money for passage to Europe. The family traveled in 2015 by foot, bus, boat and train toward Greece and Germany amid a widespread refugee crisis. After resettling in Cologne, they received a small comfortable home and Israa began school, where classmates and teachers showed curiosity and kindness. Over the years Israa felt increased scrutiny and grew distant from her father Tarek, whose adherence to old traditions clashed with her accelerated teenage rebellion and cultural conflicts.
Read at Vulture
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