I Was a Stranger

Brandt Andersen's 2025 film follows a Syrian doctor and her daughter fleeing Aleppo, together with the four people their journey crosses: a smuggler, a soldier, a poet and a coast guard captain. The story builds those five lines as different faces of the same crisis. The structural risk is plain: in multi-strand narratives some lines stay weaker than others, and that happens here, with the doctor's line the strongest. Against that, the film's question is clear and refuses easy answers: not who is responsible, but who failed to act. Yasmine Al Massri is strong. The sequences at sea are genuinely shattering. Who it's for: viewers interested in films about migration and refuge. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a hopeful close, or avoiding scenes of war, drowning and danger to children.