The Mother of All Lies

The Mother of All Lies (كذب أبيض) is a 2023 Arabic-language documentary film directed, written, produced and edited by Asmae El Moudir. The film explores the director's search for truth in her family background, combining personal and national history. It is a co-production between Morocco, Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The film had its world premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, where El Moudir won the Un Certain Regard Best Director award. It was selected as the Moroccan entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, and was one of the 15 finalist films in the December shortlist.

Plot
Unclear about her family's lack of personal photos, director Asmae El Moudir learns that her grandmother Zahra strictly prohibited the creation of any images or photographs. El Moudir and her father Mohamed open an atelier where they craft a set of miniature clay figurines that recreate her childhood street in Sebata district in Casablanca. Friends, neighbors, and, more difficultly, Zahra are brought to the workshop to interact with the miniatures and reflect upon their past. As she investigates her family's history, she unravels its connection to the collective history of the neighborhood, particularly to the 1981 Casablanca bread riots which resulted in the massacre of many residents.

El Moudir narrates the film from her perspectives as a child and as an adult, melding fiction and reality to show how unreliable memories can complicate a person's identity. El Moudir says,"'I am not trying to document the true story of my family but to make a film about the multiplicity of points of view and the plurality of interpretations that exist within one household, not only for the sake of family history but for that of national history as well.'"

Cast

 * Zahra Jeddaoui
 * Mohamed El Moudir
 * Abdallah EZ Zouid
 * Said Masrour
 * Ouardia Zorkani
 * Asmae El Moudir

Production
The film took Asmae El Moudir a total of eight years to complete. Without any archive of visual material from her family history, she began creating her own. She began shooting with her small camera in 2018, then went in search of financing for a bigger production and to secure the director of photography. Between 2019 and 2020, she worked on the set. El Moudir and her father spent eight months creating the miniature models. Shooting lasted three months and took place in what she called the "atelier" or "laboratory". Spending 2018 to 2021 making the film in the laboratory, El Moudir eventually ended up with 500 hours of footage. The laboratory was located three hours away from Casablanca. El Moudir believed her interviewees would be less forthcoming in Casablanca since they felt they could not talk freely in their houses. She told them that the physical distance would create a space where they could concentrate.

El Moudir spent three years attempting to convince her grandmother to participate in the film. A turning point came when she brought an actress and informed her grandmother that the actress would tell her story instead. Her grandmother objected and agreed that she could a better job.

The film's Arabic title translates to "White Lies". El Moudir uses the expression of a white lie becoming the "mother of all lies" to emphasize how her family telling small lies in the household "grew, broke the walls of our houses and escaped into the neighborhood and then in the entire country." The title is also interpreted with "the mother" being El Moudir's grandmother.

El Moudir presented a working copy of the film at the "Final Cut in Venice", where films compete for financial post-production support, during the 78th Venice International Film Festival.

Release
The film was selected to be screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 76th Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 24 May 2023. It also screened at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2023. The documentary was also invited to the 2023 Vancouver International Film Festival in 'Spectrum' section and was screened on 28 September 2023. It was also invited at the 28th Busan International Film Festival in 'Documentary Showcase' section and was screened on 5 October 2023.

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