Miguel's war

by Eliane Raheb

Born to a conservative Catholic father and a despotic Syrian mother, Michel threw himself into a life of excess during which he had to face the demons of Lebanon, fight in a militia and give in to the horrors of war before going into exile in Spain, where, as Miguel, he became stunned by the post-Franco Movida and finally assumed his homo-sexuality.

This journey into his past is made at the instigation of documentary filmmaker Eliane Raheb, who pushes him to the limit, confronts him with spectres from his past and accompanies him through a painful process of mourning: that of the lost illusions of a bullied little boy who chose to play with fire in order to better rise from his ashes.