White Lies
Date:
January 12, 2023
White Lies
White Lies
by Alba Zari
Slingshot Films | Italy
Agent Double | Belgium
Documentary | 1st feature
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Logline
Through confrontation with her mother and grandmother, Alba traces the story of three generations of women, investigating their choices, uncovering their hidden truths and the white lies that defined their identities.
Synopsis
Alba was 25 years old when she learnt that Johnny was not her father. Confronting herself with her mother Ivana and grandmother Rosa, she discovered that more was untold: Rosa left Trieste in the 80ies, leaving behind her conventional marriage and bringing with her only Ivana, 13 years old at that time. After an adventurous trip they reached Bangkok where they entered the Sect of the Children of God, a christian sexual cult spread out from California all over the world. They lived in a commune, and practice the so-called “Flirty Fishing”, the enrollment of new male adepts through prostitution. Alba was born there as Jesus Baby – the name given to the children of unknown fathers. A few years later Rosa decided to escape, bringing with her her daughter and grandchildren. Altogether Ivana and Rosa had spent in the cult more than ten years.
Alba today has no memories of the years she spent in the cult; still, she lives the consequences of that choices: while Rosa overcome the past denying her responsability and reiventing herself as a wedding planner, Ivana was unable to reconnect with life after the sect: diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, she looks at her younger self with struggling melancholy and unacceptance for her destiny.
Through the eyes of Alba and her artistic work, White Lies traces the path of three women and their struggle to exist: through denials and unacceptance, through re-elaboration and creation, three identities in search for reconciliation and redemption.
Director’s Profile
Born in Bangkok in 1987, since childhood she led a nomadic life that brought her to live in different cities and countries. Her experience as a traveler influences and is reflected in her photographic practice, with intends to explore social themes, for example her visual studies of mental health centres since the Italian Basaglia Law and of the widespread eating disorders of the American society. Her style is distinguish by her very painterly use of the color of the material, and by her images featuring unresolved, melancholic environments. Zari has an introspective sensibility for photography. Through the lens, she depicts posing female figures who, despite the classicism of the compositions, emerge in all their expressive power with aching intimacy.
Her recent works include Occult (2020-), a visual study on the propaganda of the cult Children of God, she travelled tracing her mothers past to India, Nepal and Thailand. The Y- Research of Biological Father (2017), born out of a journey in search of her origins through the father she never knew. Places (2015), a book and a photographic project executed with ElementWo, witch deals with analysis of the visual communication of ISIS propaganda.
With The Y she is part of the Foam Talents 2020. Her work has been exhibited in international festivals and museums such as MAXXI, Rome, London Art Fair, Circulation Paris and Athens Photo Festival; won awards such as Backlight prize (Finland) and GraziaDei prize (Italy), Images Vevey Jury prize (Switzerland) . Her work is held in private collections and museums such as Fotomuseum Winterthur, MAXXI museum, Fondazione Orestiadi and Collezione Donata Pizzi.
She has released the short documentary FreiKörperKultur (2021) premiered at the Venice Film Festival- Settimana della Critica. She is working on her first documentary feature film White Lies.
Company Profile