With millions of Ukrainians displaced by war, this vertical documentary aimed to shed light on an underreported approach to healing that uses theater to help young refugees process the loss of their home and build community in a new country.
The story follows Teens Ukraine Theater, a New York-based ensemble where Ukrainian teenagers perform stories drawn directly from their own lives. By pairing the teens' firsthand stories with insights from a licensed trauma therapist and a co-founder of the group, the documentary explored how storytelling can foster resilience, strengthen relationships, and deepen public understanding of the refugee experience. Additionally, it aimed to reveal the profound emotional impact of documentary theater, a powerful and little-known genre. “My biggest pride is not this play that you’re about to see,” co-founder Anya Zicer tells TIME video producer Alyona Uvarova. “My biggest pride is the connection they create between themselves.
To capture the impact of Teens Ukraine Theater, Alyona Uvarova spent a week filming the ensemble through rehearsals and the final performances of one of their theater runs, operating two cameras on her own. Because arts projects often operate with limited funding, the production only stages new performances periodically — with just three runs taking place over four years. Capturing the story required timing the reporting around this rare performance window. The documentary combined intimate moments from rehearsals and performances with interviews from the theater co-founder and a licensed therapist specializing in trauma-related care.
A key storytelling challenge was translating a viscerally emotional and multilayered topic into a vertical video under three minutes. The documentary was structured to first draw audiences in through personal stories of the teenagers and the theater co-founder’s insights into how she and her production partner create a space where young people feel safe enough to explore memories of home, loss, and belonging. It then expands into the science behind why this storytelling process can be so powerful for both the people in it and the people watching it, connecting documentary theater to principles used in trauma-focused therapies. Theater is not therapy, a therapist explains, but it can be deeply therapeutic by allowing people to revisit, reshape, and share their experiences through narrative.
By combining personal testimony, artistic insight, and expert context, the documentary transformed a niche theater project into an accessible story about community and the universal need to be heard.
The documentary reached more than 363,000 people across Instagram, X, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn, with more than 236,000 views coming from Instagram alone. It also had 480 shares and 135 reposts on Instagram and prompted an emotional response from the audience. Some viewers shared personal reactions to the story, such as “ART IS HEALING. ❤️🩹”, and the story also resonated with the young people featured in the documentary. One Teens Ukraine Theater participant shared: “Being a part of this group mended my broken immigrant heart together. I could not imagine that it was possible for me to feel at home again.”
This project showed the value of investing in this art form. Not only can this lesser-known type of theater help facilitate healing for refugees, a group of people growing every year given the armed conflicts around the world, it provides audiences with a unique, captivating look into untold stories
