The supervisor of the selection process was Felix Mora, who selected the workers according to their physique and level of education, from a very special angle, since it was a " primeval " process: even the slightest educational level was disqualifying. Set in the villages of southern Morocco and northern France where the coal mines were once located, the documentary recounts the suffering of these Moroccan miners who went to work in the depths of an unknown country, spending their entire youth in extremely difficult living conditions.

Using the fictional character of "Lahcen", who used to receive recorded audio messages back from his wife, "Zahra", who was left behind in the country to take care of the family and bring up her children while waiting to join her husband, the director expresses the suffering of the working men's wives who were forced to live on the margins of life. In the hope of a better life for their families, husbands and wives were condemned to loneliness and bitter neglect, with the only hope being to return home and put the nightmare of black coal behind them.

The filmmaker has managed to bring to light some disturbing stories, such as the fact that mining company doctors withhold medical records for mineworkers suffering from life-threatening chronic respiratory diseases, so that companies can avoid having to pay out compensation, and the breakdown within families brought on by this economic migration, which was initially intended to allow them to travel for several months to improve their living conditions and then return to their villages in Morocco.

CCME