Cannes Trailer for Moroccan Documentary Film ‘The Mother of All Lies’
by Alex Billington
May 11, 2023
Source: YouTube
“The graves, you dug them up. But the truth, you’ve shut it up.” An early promo trailer has debuted for a documentary film titled The Mother of All Lies, which is premiering at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival this month. It’s rare that Cannes shows documentaries, so this is a good sign this one is something special. It’s made by a Moroccan filmmaker named Asmae El Moudir, telling a story about her own life and her own mother. The title is a double entendre, since the phrase “mother of all” is common – but it seems to also be about her own mother’s lies. A Moroccan woman’s search for truth tangles with a web of lies in her family history. As a daughter and filmmaker, she fuses personal and national history as she reflects on the 1981 Bread Riots, drawing out connections to modern Morocco. On a handmade set recreating her Casablanca neighborhood, a young Moroccan filmmaker enlists family and friends to help solve the troubling mysteries of her childhood. This looks riveting, certainly a new film to keep an eye out for if you enjoy watching docs.
Here’s the festival trailer (+ poster) for Asmae El Moudir’s doc The Mother of All Lies, from YouTube:
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 and strikingly inventive nonfiction film, El Moudir begins to draw what is real to the surface. The Mother of All Lies, also known as Kadib Abyad, is directed, written, edited and produced by Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir, making her second film after directing The Postcard doc previously. It’s premiering at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival this month in the Un Certain Regard section. No other release dates are set yet – stay tuned for more updates. Anyone interested in this?
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