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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Àma Gloria review – amazing performances in sensitive drama about a kid and her nanny

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Six year old Louise Mauroy-Panzani is wonderful as Cléo, strongly bonded to her carer Gloria, who has to leave her

By rights Louise Mauroy-Panzani should be at the front of the queue for every acting award going for her role in this gorgeous French drama. Just six years old at the time of filming (the casting director spotted her in Paris arguing with her brother in the street), she gives a performance so open and natural, it has an almost transparent quality. You feel what her character Cléo feels as her world is turned upside down over one summer. Equally brilliant is another first-time actor, Ilça Moreno Zego, a real-life nanny playing Gloria, who has taken care of Cléo since she was tiny and is now moving back to Cape Verde.

The opening scenes showing us Cléo’s life with Gloria are beautifully detailed. Cléo’s mum died when she was a baby, and she lives with her dad (Arnaud Rebotini), who is gentle but remote, still reeling from grief. It’s Gloria who is the sun in Cleo’s life. Running out of school her little face, poking out from under a tangled mop of curls, lights up at the sight of her nanny. Then, one day, Gloria gets a call. Her mother in Cape Verde has died; she is going home to look after her own children.

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