The Mother of All Lies, Asmae El Moudir’s personal vision of the Castablanca riots of 1981

With resources such as the recreation of her childhood neighborhood in an almost domestic set, the Time of History competition has added The Mother of All Lies, by Moroccan director Asmae El Moudir , with the 1981 Casablanca riots and repression as a backdrop.

This first feature film by the author, which won the Best Director Award at Un Certain Regard at Cannes, has not been conceived as a direct denunciation, not even as a work that aims to “answer questions”; its intention is to “provoke an emotion”, in the words of the director.

Starting from a “little lie” she was told when she was a child, El Moudir delves into her personal, family and environmental memory to end up tackling “a sensitive issue” in her country. However, the author has clarified, she does it “in an artistic way and from a personal perspective” which, in her opinion, facilitates the acceptance by the general public.

Faced with the difficulty of accessing locations for filming, the director has resorted to creative resources with clay figures, which also refers metaphorically to childhood and its games.