the Golden Star awarded to “Kadib Abyad” by Moroccan director Asmae El Moudir

This list marks the end of the 20th edition of the festival, organized from November 24 to December 2 and marked by “sobriety” due to the war in Gaza.

Moroccan director Asmae El Mudir won the Golden Star at the Marrakech International Film Festival on Saturday with Kadib Abyad (The Mother of All Lies), a first for a Moroccan film.

The 32-year-old director explores in this documentary the haunted, unspoken past of her family and, beyond that, that of the Moroccan kingdom during the “years of lead” of the reign of Hassan II. Lacking archive images, she imagined an ingenious device by filming a model of the neighborhood of her Casablanca childhood as well as figurines to narrate this family past, with the background of the “hunger riots”bloodily repressed in June 1981 in Casablanca.

“Thanks to collective memory, although imperfect, we preserve history”

“I am very happy to receive the first Gold Star for Morocco,” declared Asmae El Moudir to AFP after her coronation.

“Every society has a truth that has been buried, burned, expunged, erased but thanks to collective memory, although imperfect, we preserve the history that cannot be erased through testimony, creation and recreation”said Jessica Chastain, the president of the jury, about the film which won the directing prize in the Un Certain Regard selection at the Cannes festival in May.

The jury prize was awarded ex aequo to Moroccan director Kamal Lazraq for The packs and to the Franco-Algerian director Lina Soualem for Bye Bye Tiberias which traces the life of Franco-Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass.

“This award is dedicated to all Palestinians trying to find their place in the world”said Lina Soualem in a recorded message, calling for a “cessation of hostilities” in the Gaza Strip where a war broke out in retaliation for the bloody attack by Palestinian Hamas on October 7 on Israeli soil.

This is the movie Banel and Adama by the French-Senegalese director Ramata-Toulaye Sy who won the directing prize.

The Best Actress Award went to Bosnian actress Asja Zara Lagumdzija for her role in Excursion and that of male interpretation to the Turkish actor Doga Karakas for Dormitory.