Set in the mining town of Jerada in eastern Morocco, L’mina reconstructs the dangerous, clandestine world of coal extraction that continues long after the official shutdown of the mines in 2001. Despite the closure, desperate economic conditions have driven many residents to keep descending illegally into the abandoned shafts at immense personal risk. The 26-minute film doesn't rely on conventional storytelling. Instead, it collaborates with the community—former miners who perform their own roles in a constructed set designed with them. It’s a cinematic gesture that is as political as it is poetic: the people of Jerada don’t just tell their story, they reclaim authorship of it.
The director’s decision to use carefully choreographed, tableau-like images of labor and tension, rather than overt dramatization, creates a formal stillness that confronts the viewer. As mining continues in silence beneath the surface of Jerada, Maroufi transforms that silence into visual weight.
Jerada has long been a symbol of marginalization in Morocco, where protests against economic abandonment have erupted frequently over the past decade. L’mina doesn’t preach or editorialize. Instead, it invites the viewer to inhabit this overlooked world—and to listen, closely.