The Mother of All Lies

Synopsis

Young Moroccan filmmaker Asmae el Moudir wants to know why she only has one photograph from her childhood, and why the girl in the picture isn’t even her. She decides to explore the past and its mysteries by creating a handmade replica of the Casablanca neighborhood where she grew up. There, she begins to interrogate the tales her mother, father and grandmother tell about their home and their country. Slowly, she starts to unravel the layers of deception and intentional forgetting that have shaped her life. The truth is hard to face, but in this sometimes surreal nonfiction film, El Moudir begins to draw what is real to the surface.

Director Biography

Asmae El Moudir has been working in the cinema and audio-visual industries since 2010. She has directed three short fiction films, and studied at La Fémis, where she produced the award-winning Thank God It’s Friday. In 2020, she directed and produced The Postcard, her first feature-length documentary.