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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Richard Sherman obituary

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Co-writer with his brother of some of the great film musical songs including classics for Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book

Richard Sherman, who has died aged 95, often said that he never realised his youthful ambition to write “the great American symphony”. However, with his brother, Robert Sherman, he co-wrote songs that provided the soundtrack for a generation’s childhood – upbeat numbers with a homespun philosophy typified by lines such as “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”.

Those words were written for the brothers’ greatest triumph, the Oscar-winning Mary Poppins (1964), for which they created a score of staggering brilliance: haunting ballads, lilting lullabies, roistering marches, energetic dance numbers and knockabout vaudeville tunes. Half of the songs instantly became standards – not just the Oscar-winning Chim Chim Cher-ee but also A Spoonful of Sugar, Feed the Birds, Jolly Holiday and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

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