Strangers gathers a three-year collaboration between twelve Syrian mothers and caregivers displaced in Beirut's Shatila camp, the practitioners of Laban Theatre Company, and the project's researchers and filmmaker. At its centre is a performance script in fourteen scenes drawn from the women's own testimony, moving between the border crossing, the hostility of the host community, and the ordinary rituals of embroidery, kept objects, and a shared meal. Around this sits a week-by-week diary of twenty-six rehearsals, critical chapters on maternal authority in displacement, and post-performance interviews with five of the participants. Edited by Abi Weaver with Farah Wardani and Daniele Rugo, it treats motherhood as a political position rather than a background condition, and declines the humanitarian image's request for pity.  
 
ABOUT Abi Weaver, Farah Wardani, and Daniele Rugo:
Abi Weaver is an author, creative, and award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work, such as About a War and The Olympic Side of London explores displacement, identity, and representation. She holds a PhD from the University of Surrey, examining the ethics of documentary interviewing, and has published on interview methods and the philosophy of voice, including in The Oxford Handbook of Media Vocality. For over a decade, she has worked on international research projects across the Middle East and Africa, exploring voice, storytelling, ethics, motherhood, and displacement.
 
Farah Wardani is an award-winning actress and pioneer of theatre for social change in Lebanon. Farah is a drama therapist, a puppeteer, a clown doctor, a trainer and playback performer. Since 2006, she has worked with more than 100,000 people across the country, creating safe spaces for expression, connection and relief from daily hardships. Her participatory theatre explores issues including gender-based violence, peacebuilding, active citizenship, civil-war memory, social cohesion, extremism, youth and children’s rights, and women’s rights.
 
Daniele Rugo is an award-winning filmmaker, author and Professor of Film at Brunel University of London. His latest film, Life Support, was released in cinemas and distributed internationally in 2026. His recent book, Images of Unrest, co-authored with Nikolaj Lübecker, examines documentary film and political violence. Daniele has led international research projects across conflict and post-conflict contexts, focusing on participatory peacebuilding and the transformative potential of arts-based methodologies to foster dialogue, connection and social change.