This fascinating non-fiction film — winner of the Best Director prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes — unearths powerful revelations after decades of silence, denial and deceit. As her parents and her formidable grandmother prepare to leave the Casablanca home they have lived in for decades, filmmaker Asmae El Moudir takes the opportunity to probe the past. She’s never understood why her mother only has one photograph of her daughter, for instance; in fact she’s not even convinced the girl in the photo is really her. Constructing a scaled reproduction of the street she remembers from her childhood in a film studio with the help of her father (a builder), El Moudir interrogates family and neighbours not only about the mysterious gaps in her own story, but the gaping silence around the 1981 Bread Riot massacre in which hundreds of civilians were killed — including Fatima, a child much like Asmae, who lived on the same block.
Best Director, Un Certain Regard; Golden Eye Best Documentary Award, Cannes 2023
A sly, often playful but ultimately moving study of community, generational anguish and atrocities covered up by the state that blends documentary technique with originality and polished storytelling skill.
Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter
Community Partner
Morocco/Qatar/Saudi Arabia/Egypt
2023
Spectrum
In Moroccan Arabic with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Asmae El Moudir
Screenwriter
Asmae El Moudir
Cinematography
Hatem Nechi
Editor
Asmae El Moudir
Production Design
Mohamed El Moudir
Original Music
Nass El Ghiwane
Director
Asmae El Moudir
Asmae El Moudir (born in 1990 in Salé) is a Moroccan film director, screenwriter and producer. Asmae has directed documentaries for SNRT, Al Jazeera Documentary, BBC and Al Araby TV. After making a number of short films, Asmae completed the mid-length documentary The Postcard in 2020. The Mother of all Lies is her first feature film.
Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre
La Bola Negra
A big, old-school historical melodrama gets a thrillingly modern, queer makeover from Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who artfully juggle three gay protagonists across stories set in 1932, 1937, and 2017. Winner: Best Director, Cannes. Screening on 35mm.
The Mad Dog of Europe
The story of an unmade screenplay from the writer of Citizen Kane. In 1932, Herman Mankiewicz wrote a film that foretold the persecution of the Jews and the war in Europe. But Hollywood wouldn't take the risk and The Mad Dog of Europe was never made.
The Mortal Storm
In this explicitly anti-Nazi melodrama directed by Frank Borzage (Three Comrades) a year before the US entered the war, Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart fall in love as their friends and family fall prey to the rise of Hitler's Nazi party in Germany.
The History of Concrete
After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
Three Comrades
Scripted by F Scott Fitzgerald, Three Comrades (1938) was the first US studio film to chronicle the rise of European fascism in the 30s. Three German veterans open up a repair shop and try to regain a normal life, but political extremists have other ideas.