Stories of a Lie

During a stay in her native Greece, Olia learns that a childhood friend has cancer — a diagnosis her doctors and family have chosen to hide from her. Expected to maintain the secret herself, Olia begins to question a practice she recognises from her own upbringing: the long-standing tradition of offering “medical lies” in the name of care. Stories of a Lie begins with a simple question — why do we hide the truth from the people we love? — and unfolds into a tender, searching portrait of a daughter and her mercurial, charismatic dentist father. Moving between present-day conversations, childhood home-movie footage, and the playful dynamic she shares with her father, Verriopoulou traces how secrecy around illness shapes families, relationships, and the stories we tell ourselves to keep going. Gentle, curious, and quietly disarming, Stories of a Lie explores the fragile ways we navigate illness, love, and the truths we choose to share — or to withhold — and ultimately lets the question ‘Is it right to lie?’ unfold into a deeper one: how we care for one another at the edge of the unknowable.