Movie Title: L’mina
Year:2025
Countries: Morocco/France/Italy/Qatar
Language: In Dajira with English subtitles
Director: Randa Maroufi
The film follows the work of local miners in Jerada. The mine officially closed more than two decades ago, yet the townspeople continue to excavate in secret. Not long ago, a collapse triggered riots demanding better work and education. The protests led to arrests, military intervention—and little change.
At first glance, it might sound like a straightforward documentary built on testimonies of workers, history, and local politics. But L’mina is anything but typical. Over three years, filmmaker Randa Maroufi reconstructed the mine as a set, casting the actual miners as themselves. It enables her to control the images and to defuse the drama from the events. The result is a shifting world—part dream, part Rembrandt like painting, part natural history museum exhibit suddenly come to life. Through this staging of reality, Maroufi transforms lived experience into something timeless, suspended between harsh reality and art.
The film’s flow, the ceaseless, monotonous movement of the camera, combined with sculptural lighting—creates a hypnotic, mesmerizing effect. The voiceovers are delivered calmly slowly exposing the story of the place and shading some light and giving a voice to those usually, literary, unseen.
Both political and poetic, it completes a trilogy on Moroccan cities by the artist. A tour de force by a filmmaker whose work has long moved between documentary, photography, installation, and cinema, L’mina fuses them all into one powerful statement.
