I escaped the Rwandan genocide as a baby. When I came back, I found that many of my generation had buried their pain | Ornella Mutoni

I was six months old when I and my family survived the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 and moved to Europe as a refugee. From my earliest memories I was told I was a survivor, but since I couldn’t remember 1994 and wasn’t able to live in Rwanda, I always wondered how people managed to survive so much violence to live with each other.

Two years ago I decided to return to meet people who had been on a journey of reconciliation. I met survivors who gave harrowing testimonies and perpetrators who expressed remorse.

It was the first time I met people behind the atrocities and heard firsthand some of the horrific murders in which they were involved. More confrontingly, some of them spoke openly about how long it took them to feel sorry for what they had done.

Towards the end of my trip, I met Émilienne Mukansoro, a therapist who leads healing circles in the country where she lost most of her family in the genocide. Mukansoro works with survivors, perpetrators and the post-genocide generation of Rwandans. “I’m doing this to bring life back to where it was once lost,” she told me. I was invited to one of the healing groups she led with female survivors.

On the surface, Rwanda appears to have managed to do the unthinkable: live in relative peace after about a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in April-July 1994. Survivors and perpetrators live side by side, in a country whose model is reconciliation. But as I sat in a healing circle and listened to these women’s stories, I saw another side of reconciliation: many people are still suffering from the pain that happened to them in 1994. In this group, I witnessed the power of sharing these burdens in a safe space. A space where they didn’t have to be brave and act like they could have moved on.

I also wanted to hear from young people who, like me, have no memories of 1994. I sat in another healing circle with young adults and heard some of the most devastating stories here: people born from genocidal rape, who are stigmatized and often hide that part of their identity.

More than 10,000 people were born as a result of rape following the genocide, and countless more women were raped.

Mukansoro’s sessions were the first time that this group of young Rwandans, all nearly 30 like me, spoke openly about the burdens they had borne. Some were born of rape and were afraid of losing friends if they told their story; others felt abandoned by their family and felt a lack of love and care due to the traumatic impact on their parents.

As I attended the session, I asked myself: What happens to the next generation if the silence continues and the effects of trauma go unaddressed? Can hidden pain erupt into violence?

This became the starting point for my short documentary The Things We Don’t Say. The film documents a group of young adults in one of Mukansoro’s workshops as they lean on each other to find the courage to face the family secrets at the heart of their difficult upbringing.

It’s about 29-year-old Thierry, who was born from rape and struggled with his identity – but wants to heal his relationship with his mother. The horrors she endured during the genocide and the loss of her family meant that she found it difficult to bond with him. He, in turn, never felt her love as he grew up. In the film, they openly talk about difficult childhood memories, how she takes out her anger on him, about her hope that one day she can apologize for everything – and that one day he will call her mother. The fact that he didn’t make it breaks her heart. Thierry says he took part in the film to advocate for others facing similar trauma due to their birth situation.

Too often in documentary film there is a tendency to glorify trauma or poverty, which perpetuates stereotypes about Africa and Rwanda. When I pitched this film, a production company asked me to change the narrative in favor of a more extreme story. This feedback was the main reason I made this film independently. I needed the freedom to step away from this narrative. I wanted to focus instead on the complexities of modern life – where love and lightness endure even in broken, painful relationships, and what the possibility of healing looks like.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the genocide and my family and I fled Rwanda 30 years ago.

There is so much to learn from a country that has had to rebuild itself from the ground up and ensure that survivors and perpetrators can live – sometimes uneasy but peacefully – side by side. While The Things We Don’t Say is just a glimpse into a group of young people wrestling with their past and present, I hope the film sheds light on the lives of those born into this dark chapter, and highlights the ongoing work needed to break the cycle of intergenerational pain caused by mass violence.

“The Things We Don’t Say” is a film by Ornella Mutoni commissioned by Guardian Documentaries