The film tells, in dense, realistic imagery that turns metaphorical at key moments, the story of eighteen-year-old refugee Mariama and the forty-year-old Cypriot woman Stella, with whom she forms an ever closer bond.
From an ecumenical perspective, “The Lion at My Back” has a Gospel narrative. Surprisingly, Mariama becomes a Christ figure for Stella and others who, by their own strength alone, cannot find their way out of destructive domination.