‘(Y)our Mother’ holds unexpected lessons of liberation

Shown as part of the 16th annual Arab Film Festival Berlin, this is a fine documentary tribute to the Morroccan-Belgian filmmaker’s family — including her devout and 'difficult' Muslim mom.

The film is “Les Miennes” (أمك، أمي) [Eng: “(Y)our Mother”]. Director: Samira El Mouzghibati. Producers: Michigan Films; Visualantics, Pivonka. Brussels, 2024. 96 min. (Arabic and French with English Subtitles.)

BERLIN (2. May, 2025) — While filming a quietly dramatic scene of her family documentary, “Les Miennes,” director Samira El Mouzghibati found herself unable to respond to what her mother was telling her.

“You’re dead to me,” was the jist of what her mom was saying. “I’m dead to you. Go live your life; forget about your mother….”

Speaking after the film, El Mouzghibati admitted to being deeply cut by her mother’s apparent rejection. Later in the editing room, however, she and a colleague saw something else coming through her mother’s words. There, on the screen, the mother’s quiet rejection seems more like a bold act of love and forgiveness: “I’m liberating you; and you’re liberating me,” she seems to be saying, her very tone sounding as much like a spoken prayer as any curse.

The freedom of women is the point of this film: Liberation from the smothering care of one’s mother — as well as liberation from the sometimes-asphyxiating embrace of our parents’ traditional beliefs, in this case, of religion….

The liberation of women is the fine point of this wonderful film: Liberation from the smothering grasp of one’s own mother, AND from the sometimes asphyxiating embrace of mom’s traditional belief system — in this case, of religion.

Filming in the family’s apartment in Brussels, where she and her four older sisters were raised, Samira El Mouzghibati set out to tell the story of her mother’s confining embrace of her religion, of Islam and the Koran. [A parent’s “blind” devotion to her faith isn’t restricted to Islam, of course. Students of contemporary Western Literature can be directed to the work of British writer Jeanette Winterson, for example. (“Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit”)]

On the surface, the different cultures of parents and children are seemingly in conflict: The filmmaker’s mother is from traditional North African Berber (or Riffi) culture. We learn of her arranged marriage, when (in the 1970s), she is suddenly wed to a young man so modern and progressive, he was determined to build his family in French-speaking Brussels, a town to which he’d already migrated. The couple raised five remarkable daughters there.

Via home-movies and El Mouzghibati’s well-shot footage, we get to know these daughters as children, and then as adults, laughing together as they encourage each other to be “normal,” well-educated, libertine Europeans. Both parents and daughters speak French more often than their parents’ Berber/Arabic. The latter is spoken mostly during the family’s eye-opening and cathartic vacation to Morocco, to Mother’s childhood home.

On her old, familiar turf, the Mother becomes her daughters’ tourguide and history teacher. She relates happy reflections on gardens and food, as well as the painful memories of being kept from visiting her own father on his deathbed. (Religious authorities and customs required the presense of her husband, unable to return from his work in Brussels. Authorities could not even honor the dying man’s requests to see his daughter, as the mother quietly relates to Samira and her camera.)

What’s remarkable — and unexpected — about ‘(Y)our Mother’ is the genuine and mutual respect — even love — that everyone in the family shows for each other.

There is a second arranged marriage in the film. Even while living as a progressive family in Europe, Samira’s parents celebrate the “marrying off” of her oldest sister. (This is a story told in old, family-made videos.) After decades — successfully playing the roles of European wife and mother — the sister and her husband file for divorce. For the daring sisters, this becomes an event for celebration. We go along with the El ‘Mouzghibati Five’ as they enjoy a wild “night on the town,” bearing all the signs of a typical European bride’s party. (Think: Brussels girls in serious nighttime “party mode,” embellished by that Arab ululation, Zaghrouta.)

Samira takes the narrative one step further with a telling soundtrack — one that highlights the by-now-familiar cultural split of Old Country vs. New: The sounds of the sisters’ joyful soirée nocturne are marked by their devout Mother’s phone-machine appeals and prayers for reconcilliation of the marriage. (Hint to audience: No way.)

What is remarkable — and unexpected — about this film is the genuine and mutual respect — even love — that everyone in this family shows for each other. At the very beginning, the progressive father encourages his wife to give Samira the open conversation she desires — and have it recorded by her camera. However reluctantly at first, the mother really rises to the occasion: For the rest of the film, she is not merely submitting — but bravely collaborating with her daughter’s truth-seeking lens and microphone.

The young director was rewarded with plenty of rich material that, by the final edit, treats everyone fairly: Despite the cultural barriers they both confront, the filmmaker is able to show how her Mother’s embrace of Islam is part of what has made her strong — resiliant, if not always independent. Audience members were moved, for example, by the mother’s gentle recitation of the Koran to her daughters. These were beautiful whispered words and narratives, which the Mother renders as if telling her youngest daughter a series of soothing bedtime stories; fables teaching morality or motivation.

After the show, El Mouzghibati told our Berlin audience that her mother got to view parts of the unfinished film before she died — and didn’t object to it. Rightfully so: There are no “bad guys” in this flick, the director’s first. (Note to the film’s promoters: Both these interesting parents — as well as the sisters — really deserve a “cast credit” in the film’s PR materials.)

Given today’s pro-West “mega-star system,” it’s a shame that few Americans likely will be given access to this film — along with too many others like it.

This was my first visit to the (16th) annual Arab Film Festival Berlin (“Alfilm”). I hope to return & see more of the same kind of powerful filmmaking, next year.
(…Inshallah…)