The Mother of All Lies

Young Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir dives into her family’s past. In a miniature Casablanca, her family and friends help her to unravel the disturbing lies from her childhood.

Asmae El Moudir grew up in a household where photos weren’t allowed. Her grandmother Zahra, a woman who cruelly demeans her daughter and granddaughter, had always forbid them. No wonder she’s less than thrilled about Asmae’s decision to begin chronicling her own family history. It forces them all to reckon with one fateful evening in 1981 when riots and mass graves in Casablanca rocked both the family and the country.

Asmae’s father has helped her build a replica of the Casablanca neighbourhood she grew up in. She fills it with handmade figurines of family members and neighbours. Now, family secrets, memories and resentments can come to a head. A beautiful and bruising piece of work, both a shared art therapy experiment and a poetic exercise in storytelling.