Al Jazeera English - Witness: Family Life with Hezbollah
The relationship between a father and his daughter is often deep and frequently complex. Imagine, then, the pressures on a relationship where father and daughter have been separated for almost a decade, but are now living together under the threat of impending war. That is the story of Derek Dergham and his daughter Chloe, whose life in the embattled suburbs of Beirut is overshadowed by the conflict with Israel.
It means that Derek and Chloe are surrounded by weapons. Because they live in that part of Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah fighters doing daily battle with the state of Israel. And the relationship each of them has with the family arsenal, is profoundly different. They are struggling to maintain a normal family life as the political situation in Lebanon deteriorates.
But strains are beginning to take over and the underlying tensions of this relationship begin to crack the fragile stability of family life for Derek and Chloe. Rodrigo Vasquez' film Family Life With Hezbollah is an intimate portrait of a father and daughter whose relationship with the gun is just as important as with each other.
It is a challenging and deeply moving insight into the complexities of family life in one of the world's most unstable political environments.
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About Al Jazeera - Witness
Rageh Omaar presents Witness, a half-hour daily documentary series which features short, specially commissioned or acquired films gathered from independent filmmakers.
Each documentary reveals the unknown lives of ordinary people, following their lives, telling their stories and portraying the challenges that confront them. Our witnesses are people in a situation or those who have observed them first hand.
The films cover conflict, belief, the past and the future and as well as bringing new stories to light they showcase the talents of a new breed of multi-skilled, frontline journalist. In the studio, Rageh will further explore the issues raised in the films, with expert guests on the subject matter and the filmmakers themselves.