| The Mother of All Lies | |
|---|---|
 Promotional release poster | |
| Arabic | كذب أبيض |
| Literally | White Lies |
| Directed by | Asmae El Moudir |
| Written by | Asmae El Moudir |
| Produced by | Asmae El Moudir |
| Starring |
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| Narrated by | Asmae El Moudir |
| Cinematography | Hatem Nechi[1] |
| Edited by | Asmae El Moudir |
| Music by | Nass El Ghiwane |
Production companies |
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Release date |
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Running time | 96 minutes[2] |
| Countries |
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| Language | Arabic |
The Mother of All Lies (Arabic:كذب أبيض,romanized: kadib ʿabyaḍ,lit. 'White Lies') is a 2023 Arabic-languagedocumentary film directed, written, produced and edited byAsmae El Moudir. The film explores the director's search for truth in her family background, combining personal and national history.[3] It is a co-production between Morocco, Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.[2]
The film had its world premiere at the76th Cannes Film Festival,[4] where El Moudir won theUn Certain Regard Best Director award.[5] In December of that year, it became the first Moroccan film in the 20-year history of theMarrakech International Film Festival to win the Étoile d'Or, the festival's top prize.[6] It was selected as theMoroccan entry for theBest International Feature Film at the96th Academy Awards,[7] and was one of the 15 finalist films in the December shortlist.[8]
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 anatelier 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 the1981 Casablanca bread riots which resulted in the massacre of many residents.[3]
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."[4]
The film tookAsmae 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.[3]
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.[3]
The film's Arabic title translates to "White Lies". El Moudir uses the expression of awhite 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.[3]
El Moudir presented a working copy of the film at the "Final Cut in Venice", where films compete for financial post-production support, during the78th Venice International Film Festival.[9][10]
Music featured in the film is byNass El Ghiwane, a Moroccan musical group founded in the 1970s inCasablanca. According to the press notes ofThe Mother of All Lies from the2023 Cannes Film Festival where El Moudir won theUn Certain Regard Best Director award, the music of Nass El Ghiwane playing on the radio evokes powerful memories of the director's childhood. The notes further add: "Their repertoire is drawn from the melting pot of Moroccan culture and poetry, but also fromSufi texts from great religious figures ofIslam. With their engaging and poetic lyrics reflecting the discomfort of Moroccan youth at the time and their powerful rhythms, played with traditional instruments, they have revolutionized Moroccan and North African music and left an indelible mark on the country's cultural landscape".[11]
The film was selected to be screened in theUn Certain Regard section of the76th Cannes Film Festival,[12] where it had its world premiere on 24 May 2023.[4] It also screened at the2023 Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2023.[1][13] The documentary was also invited to the2023 Vancouver International Film Festival in 'Spectrum' section and was screened on 28 September 2023.[14] It was also invited at the28th Busan International Film Festival in 'Documentary Showcase' section and was screened on 5 October 2023.[15]
International sales are handled by Autlook Filmsales.[4]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes,100% of 37 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.9/10.[16]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 76 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[17]
