In White Lies, the photographer and visual designer born into the controversial Children of God sect in Bangkok in 1987 Alba Zari digs deep into her past with the tenacity of someone seeking out a denied identity. Having returned to the city of Trieste where her family live, Alba discovers at the age of 25 that her biological father’s identity is a mystery: he’s not Johnny, her mother Ivana’s partner back in Thailand, but potentially an Iranian man and Emirates pilot called Massad. By way of old footage, yellowing photos and difficult conversations, the documentary examines the lives of three generations of women – grandmother Rosa, mum Ivana and Alba herself – who are haunted by silences, omissions and extreme choices.

In competition for the Corso Salani Prize at the Trieste Film Festival having already bagged four prizes at the Festival dei Popoli, and briefly screened in the IFFR’s Bright Future line-up, the film is written and directed by Zari herself: an intimate investigation into the family dynamics destroyed by the sect founded by American Moses David. Rosa leaves her husband and children (Sonia and Andrea) to join the ‘70s hippie cult, attracted by a "free love" utopia which turns out to be none other than religious prostitution: "flirty fishing", which sees women enticing men into the cult by proselytising, using a "love thy neighbour" approach as a form of coercion. As a teen, Ivana follows her mother to Thailand, Greece, the Balkans and India, the latter a missionary in an "army" prepared for Armageddon. Alba, a "Jesus baby", inherits an emptiness: "Going to the sea every day, being happy, building sandcastles and diving into the crystal-clear waves" – she reminisces from her Thailand days – but also leaving Johnny, the man she thought was her father, "for the love of God".

Director of photography Matteo Tortone follows the director and her loved ones like a hawk. In the sequences shot in Trieste, the pain associated with their inability to communicate is palpable: numbed by medication for paranoid schizophrenia “caused by destabilising experiences” in a life “deprived of human dignity", Ivana says "I’m sorry" repeatedly while smoking incessantly. Alba gently insists with her questioning. Her Uncle Andrea, a fervent Christian and fellow chain-smoker, reveals various acts of abuse suffered by Rosa at the hands of her husband.

The 76-year-old grandmother now lives in Positano. Alba looks through old photos with her and reads poetry written by the director herself when she was a teen. Tears and belated excuses ensue: "I made a mistake, I’ve already been cleansed of my guilt". Anyone watching this documentary is torn between condemning this woman after all these years, or forgiving her for recklessly fleeing a patriarchal family. At Christmas, the four of them come together and, after the church service where the priest celebrates the importance of family as "non-negotiable", they confront one another again, at the dinner table. Then Alba flies to Thailand where she meets preacher Johnny, who’s a mere shadow of a father, incapable of “filling the abyss”. There’s a finale full of love in Trieste, involving her mum, Ivana. “I’ve always loved her, even though she’s lied to me for 25 years”.

White Lies depicts an intergenerational trauma without sensationalism using Zari’s art as a narrative tool, the director having previously explored her roots using her family’s home videos and having also worked on issues around the female body and self-perception. Images manipulated by way of trimmed silhouettes and footage from her childhood and from her current life, often with the element of water appearing in the foreground, reveal faces, eyes and bodies which speak to the “black hole” left by her father’s absence, communicating pain. As the director explains in a voice-over, her father “wasn’t among the waves which broke onto the beaches of Pattaya, he wasn’t in the faces of the people I met or in the stories they told me”. Alba hasn’t found her father, but she has realised that rather than being defined by his absence, she’s defined by her capacity “to love and to create meaning where before there was nothing”.

White Lies was produced by Italy’s Slingshot Films, in association with Belgium’s Agent Double.