I Was a Stranger

I Was a Stranger (2025) is Brandt Andersen's drama-thriller, available to watch online on iFILM. A doctor flees the ruins of Aleppo with her daughter, and that single escape sets off a chain that pulls five strangers into one another's paths.

A smuggler. A soldier. A poet. A coast guard captain. None of them crosses the woman's road by accident, and each holds a piece of whether she ever reaches shore. Andersen scatters his characters across the refugee route, then forces them together at moments where one act of cowardice or nerve is worth a life. Yasmine Al Massri, Yahya Mahayni and Omar Sy lead the cast.

Shot across Jordan, Palestine, Turkey and the US, the film trades headlines for faces — its tagline, "based on 14 million true stories," is less a slogan than a way to hold one of them up close. Hard but never exploitative, it's for viewers who want the people behind the numbers. Stream I Was a Stranger (2025) online on iFILM.