Les Miennes

Amongst themselves, the four sisters in Samira El Mouzghibati's family call their mum “your mother,” as if she had never been their own. This small, hunched over, glum-looking woman, devoid of hope – like "an oversalted tagine" – looks nothing like her happy, gregarious and independent daughters. Raised by her sisters, Samira now possesses a joyful and abundant material: voice messages on old answering machines, video tapes of birthdays, house moves and other defining moments. She also has interviews, stealthily filmed under the cover of night with her first camera. In them, she asks her older sisters about family, about marriage. Instincts, obsessions. Hitherto-unheard words from her mother, gathered in her home village of Rif, complete the narrative. The filmmaker examines her connection with her roots, with Morocco, with immigration, and goes on a brave and deeply touching journey into her heritage and the notion of freedom which runs through all the women in her family.

Anne Delseth