Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir’s “Kadib Abyad” or “The Mother Of All Lies” won the official competition prize at the 70th annual Sydney Film Festival (SFF), which was held on June 7-18, in Sydney (Australia), the Festival had announced in a tweet. The prize is worth A$60,000 ($41,000).
The movie relates the story of a young woman’s quest for truth which tangles with a web of lies in her family’s history. The movie touches on the Bread Riots and makes connections to contemporary Morocco.
A series of prizes were handed on Sunday, the formal closing night of the SFF. Additional screening of popular films is scheduled for Monday.
Tickets sales for the festival were believed to be up 25% from the previous year, a near record.
In the recent Cannes Film Festival’s “Un Certain Regard” selection, the movie was awarded the Directing Prize.
Asmae El Moudir was selected by the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity along with five Arab filmmakers and producers. She was awarded $250,000 to help finance her film “The Mother of All Lies,” which was chosen for the non-fiction category.