THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES | KADIB ABYAD

MOROCCO, SAUDI ARABIA, QATAR, EGYPT | 2023 | COLOR | DCP | 97’ | ARABIC

Perhaps the greatest legacy of cinema, and art, is that it brings out the footnotes of History as main chapters of our everyday life. Few people remember the Casablanca bread riots in 1981, when hundreds (tens according to the State) of people paid with their lives protesting against the price increase of basic food due to the longstanding war in Western Sahara. Triggered by that, El Moudir attempts to seek/reconstitute a literally lost, unphotographed time, bringing her family together in order to rebuild their old neighborhood in the form of a marvelous miniature diorama. Memory, violence, secrets, silence and an exquisite ambiguous character, that of the grandmother, form a unique poetic essay on reenactment and fragmented identity. I.D.

DIRECTOR: Asmae El Moudir
SCREENWRITER: Asmae El Moudir
DoP: Hatem Nechi
MUSIC: Nass El Ghiwane
EDITOR: Asmae El Moudi

ASMAE EL MOUDIR
Moroccan director, born in 1990. Her studies in Film and Production took place both in her country and in Paris, at the famous La Fémis. She has directed documentaries for BBC and Al Jazeera. This is her debut feature film which received the Documentary Award at the latest Cannes Film Festival, as well as The Directing Prize of Un Certain Regard.

FILMOGRAPHY
2023 The Mother of All Lies