The Mother of All Lies
Asmae El Moudir / Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia & Qatar / 2023 / 96 min
Last year's critically acclaimed Cannes winner is a Moroccan filmmaker's attempt to reconstruct her family's shadowy past. A miniature model of the family's labyrinthine neighbourhood in Casablanca is an important piece in a cinematic puzzle.
There is only one childhood image of filmmaker Asmae El Moudir. At least that is what her mum says. But why does the girl in the photo look nothing like her? There are more open questions than solid answers in Asmae’s life, and now she decides to fill in the blanks in her life story, no matter the cost. She builds a miniature model of the labyrinthine neighbourhood in Casablanca where she grew up and, with the help of her more or less reluctant family members, sets about recreating their collective memory. But little by little, the tongue-ties are loosened and light is shed on the many layers of deception and repression that have shaped Asmae’s life. ‘The Mother of All Lies’ won the Director’s Prize in the Un Certain Regard series at Cannes last year and has received a wave of awards and honours since.