Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir has made history at the 20th edition of Morocco’s Marrakech Film Festival as the first local director to win its top prize with her hybrid documentary The Mother Of All Lies.
Inspired by the bread riots in El Moudir’s home city of Casablanca in 1981, the work uses a replica of the neighborhood where it happened and figurines to explore the lasting trauma of the event.
The film world premiered at Cannes this year, where it shared the Golden Eye prize for the Best Documentary with Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters.
Morocco has since submitted the work as its candidate for Best International Film at the 96th Academy Awards. In other Marrakech awards, theJury Prize was shared by Moroccan director Kamal Lazraq’s kidnapping thriller Hounds and French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberius, revisiting the story of her actress mother Hiam Abbass displaced family.
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