To produce this indie and experimental documentary, El Moudir assembled family members and neighbours as cast and crew members: her gracious but mildly spoken father, her humorous and outspoken mother, her dictatorial grandmother, with assistance from two neighbours, Said and Mohammed. By co-opting people she shares familial and personal bonds with, El Moudir retains a sense of intimacy in the film. 

The Mother of All Lies tethers its plot progression to the story of Fatima, a girl we never meet but whose story is an important narrative arc, the subtle conflict in the director’s family, the neighbours’ tragedy, and the father’s stifled dream which, as the documentary will show, is connected to a national crisis. As the documentary unfolds, it’s beautiful to behold how all these disparate and variant events culminate into a single, yet complex narrative. The Mother of All Lies focuses on how the shadow of a country’s social and historical past affects the director’s life.  

El Moudir’s documentary starts slowly by devoting attention to the internal affairs of the director’s family. The documentary introduces us to her family and their distinct traits: the dark humour of her mother, the supportive father, and the grandmother who constantly bickers with domineering poses and stares. Here lies the first introduced conflict: the fight between the grandmother and El Moudir about her decision to opt for a career in filmmaking. At certain points in the documentary, it feels like making the film is El Moudir’s way of fighting back against her grandmother’s dictatorial and firm grip on her family. We catch fragments of every feeling and external affair in the neighbourhood by watching the grandmother act as the customs officer directing the flow of internal and external activities in the family.  

After dedicating attention to the internal conflict in the family, the documentary swerves attention into the public domain. From here, the tone and mood of the film get tense and urgent. How much of the memory of a person is lost in the fleeting years? How much do you remember when there aren’t any pictorial references? With the absence of pictures or archival footage, save for one monochrome picture, how do the people lay claim to these tragic and sinister deeds of the government? All these are previously unarticulated questions that the documentary asks before revealing an important situation: The state-sponsored killing of 600 people in Casablanca when they protested against the rise of the price of bread on 20th June 1980. 

Pictures are a connoisseur of memories and stories. But in a surveillance state where pictorial and archival evidence that bears witness to this gang-related act of the government has been destroyed, how do you remember? And here lies the strong point of the film: By merely existing, thinking about these past issues, and making a documentary about them, The Mother of All Lies is providing alternative evidence.