The Mother of All Lies
Spring Grants 2019 - Development Stage
Asmae El Moudir / Feature Documentary / Morocco, France, Qatar / 80 min / Original Language: Arabic / Interests: Creative Documentary
Synopsis
Asmae, a 28-year-old Moroccan woman filmmaker doesn’t have any pictures of herself as a child. The only one her mother could provide is an old photograph damaged by time, where we can barely recognize a little girl in the background. It is the only visual evidence she has from her childhood. But Asmae knows it’s not her and she will play with this incident of the strange photograph to tell other stories that she doesn’t believe as well. This sensitive subject will be the starting point of an investigation that unfolds the secrets of a Casablanca family. Using different personal stories of each family members to ground historical political events, Asmae shows how each story of each character contains some lie within it. This will be the plot’s leitmotiv that will expose bigger events and slowly focus on the 1981 “bread riots” by inserting the riots into the story’s weave. Through the memories of her mother, father or grandmother, Asmae is not only drawing a portrait of her family but one of Moroccan society as well.
Credits
- Director
- Asmae El Moudir
- Screenwriter
- Asmae El Moudir
- Producer
- Lucie Rego, Pauline Tran Van Lieu
About the Director
Director, writer and producer Asmae El Moudir has been working in the audiovisual landscape since 2010 and produced numerous documentaries for Arabic channels such as Al Jazeera. Her last short film produced at French school La Fémis, 'Thanks God It’s Friday, Anachronic Memories or the Friday Noon Couscous’ was awarded in many prestigious festivals such as Sao Paulo Mostra, Beirut Film Festival, Africa Movie Academy Awards, etc. Staging her family in a chronicle about the couscous and the story of her communist uncle, was a way of talking about the political repression under the regime of Hassan II.
Contacts
-
Main Contact
Asmae El Moudir
- Company:
- Insight Films
- Phone:
- +212644169295
- Email:
- asmae.elmoudir@gmail.com