Two must-see documentaries open in New York City this Friday, September 6. “Mother of All Lies” is a beautiful and powerfully moving Moroccan film about a young director’s unique attempt to help her family deal with the grief they still experience regarding a massacre that happened decades ago. To paraphrase Woody Guthrie, this film kills fascists. Go here for showtimes and tickets.

In June 1981 thousands of Moroccans in poor neighborhoods in the city of Casablanca took to the streets to protest huge price increases of bread and other basic foodstuffs. It was part of what has been called the “years of lead” (not to be confused with the time in Italy’s history bearing the same name.) This was the period of King Hassan II’s rule marked by cruel and violent repression of political dissidents. The police fired into the crowds, reportedly killing over 600 people, though the government claimed only 66 had died.

33-year-old Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir, wondering why her family had only one photograph of her as a child (one she doubted may even have been of her), came up with a unique idea for a film which would help her get to the truth about her family’s unspoken past. She worked with her father Mohamed, a highly-skilled artisan and sculptor of tiny furniture and dolls, her mother Ouarda Zorkani and two neighbors, Abdallah EZ Zouid and Said Masrour, to build a handmade set reproducing their neighborhood circa 1981 in miniature as a method to unearth memories from the horrific events of that year. One relative who refused to cooperate (and only begrudgingly agreed to be in the film) was her widowed grandmother Zahra. She, though the beloved matriarch of the family, still revered King Hassan II (who left power in 1997) and refused to contribute to stories about the tragic day. She is seen kissing a miniature portrait of the King and angrily smashing a glass caricature of her which she calls “rubbish!”

Zahra clearly has much to hide and the film and its participants must tread a careful balance to try to confront her with the past without alienating her completely. She is unmoved during a harrowing sequence in which one of the neighbors breaks down in tears while recalling being left to die with others in a windowless jail cell. He survived but many didn’t and he spent years in prison even though he had not participated in the protests.

Asmae’s project (which won her the Best Director award in Cannes’ 2023 Un Certain Regard section) brings to mind the 2010 film “Marwencol” which documented how the brain-damaged and poor victim of a hate crime sought recovery by building a 1/6th scale World War II village in his backyard. (It was later remade as “Welcome to Marwen,” a 2018 feature, starring Steve Carell.) The sheer artistry of El Moudir’s father’s set design (including gorgeous lighting effects, textiles and costumes) combined with the stunning cinematography of Hatem Nechi, and a memorable soundtrack by renowned Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane combine to make the film an unforgettable sensory and emotional experience

There is indeed a politics of memory and this is an intricate exploration of the tactics by powerful rulers and institutions to silence intimate family histories, to limit those memories and dilute historical narratives, especially by controlling archival materials. (There exists only one photo of the massacre!) One can only painfully imagine the tens of thousands of sorrowful memories Palestinians in Gaza will be dealing with for decades to come and which the government of Israel will try its best to erase.

Director Asmae El Moudir will be present for Q&A’s at all screenings from Friday to Sunday.

There are millions of Americans who have never and will never eat a raw oyster. I’m not one of them yet all I knew about these bivalve molluscs before watching “Holding Back the Tide” was that you’re not supposed to eat them in a month whose name doesn’t include an “r.” Now I know quite a bit about them thanks to this entertaining and fascinating documentary which opens this Friday, September 6 at DCTV Firehouse in Tribeca. Go here for showtimes and ticket information.

Though oysters are associated with wealthy diners and hipsters using them as aphrodisiacs today, in the 19th century they were a cheap staple enjoyed by the working class. New York City was the leader in oysters, producing and exporting half of them to the world. A black man, Thomas Downing, parlayed his knowledge as an oysterman into becoming one of the wealthiest New Yorkers of the first half of the 1800s and was an important abolitionist. They also kept the harbor waters clean by filtering millions of gallons of pollutants. Overharvesting, though, has made it unsafe now to grow and eat oysters in either river bordering Manhattan. (Most of the ones eaten here now come from Long Island sound.)

Several successful projects aiming to clean the city’s harbors using oysters are investigated in the film. Most impressive is the Billion Oyster Project which collects discarded oyster shells from restaurants and uses them to build massive reefs that, in only a few years, will make the water clean again. Colorful innovators like Moody “The Mothershucker” Harney are introducing oysters to lower income communities in an attempt to rescue them from their association with upscale dining.

And I did not know that oysters are a queer icon! Director Emily Packer alternates the historical and naturalist segments with demonstrations of why the bivalves can be seen as a symbol of sexual plurality. (The organisms can fertilize their own eggs and even change sex.) While the documentary excels at telling the fascinating history of oysters and New York City, the performative segments Packer creates to demonstrate the queer and cultural aspects of the food are hit and miss. A sequence shot in Grand Central’s Oyster Bar meant to illustrate the horniness often experienced after consuming the mollusks is so campy and salacious it made me never want to eat one again. (I’m sure I’ll get over it.) 

But others are beautiful and even a bit sublime. One is fashioned to look like a black-and-white silent film (perhaps a Méliès short) with a woman, à la Venus on the Half Shell-style, emerging from a giant oyster shell. Underwater footage of women swimming is mesmerizing when paired with a luscious mix of hydroponic recordings and a soundtrack by Grammy-winning musician Arooj Aftab.

It’s now September and the oyster season has begun–watching this fun and impressive film would be an inspired way to inaugurate it.

The director and other special guests will be in attendance at selected screenings:

Fri Sep 6, 7:00pm with director Emily Packer, Pete Malinowski of Billion Oyster Project and moderated by Firehouse Cinema Director of Programming, Dara Messinger

Sat Sep 7, 6:30pm with comedian Esther Fallick and friends, 5:00pm with director Emily Packer and Bedatri Choudhury

Tues Sep 10, 7pm with director Emily Packer and Lynne Sachs

Wed Sep 11, 7pm with Moody Harney "The Real Mothershucker"