The Mother of All Lies review – pursuing the truth of Morocco’s brutal dictatorship years

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Asmae El Moudir employs a delicate mix of handmade replicas and oral testimony to brilliantly evoke personal and collective trauma Between those who refuse to remember and those who struggle to forget, a tumultuous clash of minds occupies the centre of Asmae El Moudir’s inventive documentary, a prize-winner at last year’s Cannes film festival. Through a constellation of clay figurines and dollhouse-style miniature sets, most of which were constructed by El Moudir’s father, the director recreates her oppressive childhood in the Sebata district of Casablanca. Under the watchful eyes of her domineering grandmother Zahra, all personal photos are banished from the house, save for a picture of King Hassan II. The delicate mix of handmade replicas and oral testimony brilliantly evokes the personal and collective trauma that stem from Morocco’s “Years of Lead” – a period of state brutality under Hassan II’s dictatorial rule. Lingering on the nimble fingers of El Moudir’s father as he puts t
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Saint Omer director Alice Diop: ‘I make films from the margins because that’s my territory, my history’

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Raised in a Paris banlieue, the documentary-maker is now in the spotlight thanks to her Venice prize-winning first feature, based on the true story of a woman accused of killing her baby

“I have a voice that doesn’t carry very well,” says French film-maker Alice Diop, when I tell her I can’t quite hear what she’s saying. We meet in a cafe near her home in the working-class district of Montreuil, on the eastern edge of Paris. It is busy with lunch parties, and the combination of Diop’s French – she speaks fast and quietly – with the occasional crashes of crockery isn’t ideal for discussing the complex, challenging new film she has made.

Still, if Diop’s speech doesn’t carry acoustically, it’s a different matter with her artistic voice. After a significant career as a documentary-maker, Diop’s feature film debut, Saint Omer, is resonating worldwide. It won two awards at the Venice film festival last year and was France’s entry for the best international feature at the Academy Awards, making Diop the first black woman ever to represent France in the Oscar race. Diop is suddenly in the spotlight in a way she never imagined.

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