From: https://www.internationalfilmseries.com/spring-2025/11343/the-mother-of-all-lies
Every family has its secrets, but the one in “The Mother Of All Lies” director Asmae El Moudir’s family has haunted her for much of her life. Growing up in Casablanca, Morocco, she has almost no photos from her childhood. El Moudir realizes she’s the only one in her family with only a single photo of herself from her past – and she’s unsure if the photo of a young girl that her mother gave her is her at all. Seeking answers from tight-lipped parents and relatives, she recreates the neighborhood where she grew up in miniature form with her father, a former builder, to ask the questions no one wanted to answer. The secrets and lies go all the way to the top in the form of an iron-willed grandmother who has rarely, if ever, been questioned like this before.
This strange and creative approach to storytelling and family therapy is a small wonder to see in action. El Moudir carefully builds this experiment the way she has rebuilt her family home, working with her dad to bring the various characters of their family to life, from the activist neighbor to the stern and short grandmother who declared pictures were a sin and left El Moudir with no albums from her early years to revisit. “When grandmother speaks, everyone freezes like live photos,” El Moudir observes in her poetic narration that guides the film. As the secrets unravel, El Moudir must navigate the family’s hard truths with her sense of loss over missing out on treasuring family photos. The matriarch is a fascinating character to watch; she seems like a mystery even to her loved ones. She holds so much power and is not afraid to wield it: When she’s displeased with an artist’s glass portrait of her (she also criticizes her miniature likeness as well), she simply walks over to it and, with her sturdy cane, bashes it into oblivion. Then she walks over the remnants with a satisfied crunch.
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