What's the backstory of this film and the point at which you thought you would like to make it?

Yeah, so the filming started in 2015 at the height of what was called the refugee crisis.

Yeah, I'm Syrian myself and I left Syria thinking I'm going, you know, leaving for a year and going back.

And then I couldn't.

And I was studying filmmaking in the UK.

I was desperate to do stories about Syria, but also couldn't because my parents were living under regime controlled conditions.

area.

So presumably you were having to have editorial discussions about, you know, what was essentially an illegal activity and you wanted to film it.

Etab, how did this all begin? What was the origin of this?

Well, I mean, Jack and I went to Izmir to basically to make a film about the refugee crisis.

That's what it was called in the West back then.

And, you know, I'm Syrian and we both lived in Syria and we have passion for Syria and we really wanted to make Syrians.

something about Syria.

We couldn't do anything political because my parents were still living in Syria.

So we couldn't under like regime control.

Go ahead, Todd.

And I was curious to know, particularly for Jack and Itab, what were your biggest priorities in terms of conveying this story and what were some of the ways that you wanted to portray Isra's experience that you felt has been missing from how stories like this get portrayed in the media?

I guess, like, when we started, like, we knew that we didn't want to make a film that's yet another film about, you know, those poor refugees who are victims.

We really wanted to make something more complex and more telling, and that's why we were, like, you know, we had the passion.

I'm Syrian myself, and I really... passionate about the subject.

And that's why we stuck with the story for so long, because we had this kind of, the mission and the passion to kind of make a story that's different and to portray Isra as a, you know, Isra is not just a refugee.

She is a complex person.

human being who had her dream and ambitions and contradictions and, you know, her own, you know, way of expressing things and, you know, wanting to find her identity.

And Itab, for you, for your experiences working with Syrian refugee women in London and also being a Syrian woman living in Europe, what was it like watching Nisreen's journey unfold? And for you, Ezra, as well, having that experience of watching your mother change over time?

How did you find them and how did you decide to focus a story on them?

I'm Syrian myself and Jack and I, who is my husband, we're We were living in Syria in 2011 when the uprising started and we had to kind of leave.

But my parents stayed in Syria under a regime-controlled area.

So we were desperate to make films about Syria, but we couldn't do anything political because we didn't want to put my parents in any danger.

And then when what was called the refugee crisis started in Europe, we were absolutely desperate to go and make films.

make something about this kind of huge event.

And we wanted to do something beyond the headlines and tell people stories and tell the story of why people are leaving and where they're going through.

Can you tell us what she decided?

But it was really poignant because you see these women developing their own senses of self.

Yeah, I mean, Nisreen, the mother back in Syria, they come from a very, very conservative background.

And Nisreen wasn't like, she was only allowed to kind of see her house and her parents' house.

She only knew that street in Aleppo that she lived in.

And she wasn't allowed to go to school.

She said she doesn't read or write.

And like, the first two weeks after we met them, we didn't hear anything from her.

And what was important about following Isra to this place and just literally kind of watching her and how she's feeling through this?