BBC Storyville celebrates the selection of One in a Million for the World Cinema Documentary Competition category at Sundance Film Festival, where the film will also have its world premiere in January 2026.
A co-production between BBC Storyville and FRONTLINE FEATURES, filmed over 10 years, One in a Million follows Israa’s epic journey from Syria to Germany and back again. She and her family navigate war, exile, and heartbreak in a foreign land, revealing the complexities of the refugee experience.
In September 2015, filmmakers Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes met Israa, an 11-year-old Syrian girl selling cigarettes on a street corner in Turkey, alongside her father, Tarek. The family had fled Aleppo to join the largest movement of people since the Second World War. Together they trekked through Eastern Europe before finding refuge in Germany, where more than one million asylum seekers were registered by the end of that year.
For ten years, the filmmakers continued to document Israa’s life as the challenges of integration and cultural adjustment led to family breakdown as Western culture clashed with Syrian traditions. Following the fall of the Assad regime in 2025, the culminates when the filmmakers follow Israa, now a mother herself, back to the ruins of Aleppo as she confronts her own questions of identity and belonging.
Fiona Campbell, the BBC’s Controller of Youth Audiences and Interim Director of Unscripted, says: “I’m delighted that this film has been selected for Sundance 2026, my huge congratulations to everyone involved. Backing excellence in international storytelling is what Storyville exists to do, and I am incredibly proud to bring One in a Million to the BBC audience.”
“We’re grateful to premiere FRONTLINE FEATURES’ latest documentary ‘One in a Million’ at the Sundance Film Festival next month,” says Editor-in-Chief and Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath. “Itab and Jack’s decade-long commitment to following this story offers viewers a rare perspective on what it’s like to grow up as a refugee, and we look forward to sharing this film with audiences soon. We celebrate this exciting news with Itab, Jack and the whole film team, as well as with our partners at BBC Storyville and KEO Films.
Will Anderson, Creative Director at KEO FILMS, says: “Ten year in the making, One in a Million has been a true passion project, which has only been made possible by Israa and her family letting us in to their lives over such a long period. We are extremely grateful to them, and the BBC and PBS for supporting this ambitious project for so many years.”
Storyville: One in a Million (1×90′) is a BBC Storyville and FRONTLINE FEATURES co-production for BBC Four and BBC iPlayer. The Executive Producer for BBC Storyville is Lucie Kon, producers for KEO Films are Will Anderson, James Bluemel, Andrew Palmer and for FRONTLINE (PBS), Raney Aronson-Rath. The directors are Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes.
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