Miguel’s War

Miguel is a sensitive but self-destructive Lebanese gay man, haunted by the religious and political oppressions of his youth. Traumatised by participation in Lebanon’s civil war – a failed attempt to prove he can fight like a ‘real man’ – young Miguel exiles himself in Spain. More than 30 years later, he finally begins to confront his past, through a sometimes tense, sometimes humorous partnership with filmmaker Eliane Raheb. The result is a piece of strikingly original storytelling, excavating layers of identity, memory and fantasy, in a cathartic quest for emotional balance.

‘There’s nothing called truth in documentaries. It’s a big lie to say documentary is truth. And it’s a big lie for me to put the narration of Miguel from the beginning to the end as a voiceover just to make it flow. I wanted to show the fragility of doing a film with somebody who is controversial, who had traumas, and who cannot tell his story in an easy way. I wanted to show this, and I wanted to be honest with the process itself. This is why I left in all these parts of filmmaking, of the team, of him not able to continue, and involving him in the filmmaking itself.’

Director Eliane Raheb, from an interview with Seventh Row.