SYNOPSIS

Miguel Núñez knew that the end was near. After a lifetime of pursuing utopias, he surrendered to his final battle, that of a dignified death, with the same revolutionary fervour with which he had confronted the Franco regime and Central American dictatorships.Here was a man who had spent 14 years in Franco’s jails, who was tortured and repeatedly risked his life for his dreams of universal social justice. Coherent, lucid and sarcastic until his last breath, Miguel also wanted to turn his death into an act of affirmation. After the so-called “Leganés case” in Madrid, Miguel chose to travel to Barcelona to die. The Final Escape is an intimate portrait of the dignified death of a dignified man, but above all it is a film about the life force of an entire generation who risked their necks and yet who we are now allowing to be forgotten. The film addresses issues such as intergenerational legacy, the meaning of historical memory and the difficult relationship between political struggle and family life, themes that director Albert Solé already focused on in his previous work Bucharest, Memory Lost, winner of the Goya for Best Documentary in 2009. Accompanying us on this journey are historical characters such as Marcos Ana, Evo Morales, Agustín Ibarrola, Pasqual Maragall and Ernesto Cardenal.

DIRECTOR’S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

On the day that Miguel died, surrounded by friends and family, I honestly did not feel any of the pain of those who were there on that floor of the old people’s home in Barcelona. At heart, I felt a sense of relief and a deep feeling of admiration for the way he had confronted the end of his life, always true to his profoundly humanistic beliefs. “Hats off, Miguel,” I thought. “The end has been exactly as you wanted it to be.” Miguel did not believe in an afterlife and planned his end as an exercise in lucidity. He wanted a painless end and donated his body to science. I especially recall one anecdote amongst all the ones he told me. When I asked him how he had withstood all the torture without informing on his companions, his reply surprised me: “You have to imagine that you’re in a theatre that is missing a wall of the cell where you’re being tortured and that seated in the public are the companions who would fall if you were to talk.” Miguel’s spirit of resistance was as simple and strong as that. He spoke to me of his particular concept of the theatre of life during his last few months. I also tried to order my childhood memories, about the time when I first met Miguel and Tomasa Cuevas, his partner during the hardest years of clandestinity, a woman who walked with difficulty as a result of the torture she suffered in Franco’s police stations during her youth. Miguel and Tomasa occupied a special place in my particular pantheon of resistance heroes, because I remember the time when my parents were looking for a safe apartment in Barcelona to leave me when political events had become too complicated. Miguel and Tomasa’s apartment in what was called Avenida de Infanta Carlota at the time was a completely secret place, a secure refuge. And of course, Miguel was not only a hero for me, but also a refuge… and something like that leaves an important mark on you. I expanded the area of discussion to Miguel’s entire generation, those who bore the greatest brunt of the Spanish Civil War and subsequent repression of the Franco regime, those who have been swept aside by the winds of history. I wanted to understand how this generation is dying and how they feel about the cloak of silence that has covered historical memory in Spain. The conclusion was given to me by the great poet Marcos Ana at the end of the film. “Turn the page, of course,” he told me. “But after having read it.” Alongside creating a chronicle of the final few months of a man who had lived and died in a dignified manner, The Final Escape also aims to pay tribute to the generation of idealists to which Miguel belonged. I also wanted to continue exploring the difficulties of reconciling political militancy, family commitments and personal convictions, a path that I had already begun with the documentary Bucharest, Memory Lost.