“The Truth We Carry” is a video-art film that spans 78 years of displacement, told through the lived experiences of seven refugee women. Combining the personal histories of four women from the Greek refugee network ‘Melissa’ with my own family’s displacement story, the film gives voice to women who fled Ukraine, Iran, Gabon, Turkey, Afghanistan, Bergen Belsen, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Through the medium of contemporary dance, the film intimately portrays their life before displacement, the journey they endured, and their attempts to rebuild their lives in the present.

The choice of contemporary dance was made to express the women’s emotions and hardships in a physical and abstract form, rather than through direct reenactment. By using a single dancer and one voice for all the stories, I aim to emphasize the shared nature of displacement across different contexts. While the women come from diverse backgrounds, their struggles and resilience reflect a universal experience of fleeing home and striving to rebuild their lives. The simplicity of the black box setting and the focus on the human body highlight vulnerability, while the use of minimal props helps to differentiate each woman’s narrative, ensuring that their individuality is still recognized within the collective experience.

I chose to focus on women because their stories remain underrepresented. Women not only endure the trauma of displacement but are often responsible for holding families together and rebuilding shattered lives. The film’s scripts were created from interviews with the women, using verbatim translations to preserve their voices.

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