Part of the African Diaspora International Film Festival

This powerful documentary, filmed between Morocco and France, uncovers the forgotten history of over 70,000 Moroccan laborers, primarily recruited by Félix Mora in the 1950s to fill the labor needs of the French coal mines.

Recruited from poor, rural communities under false pretenses, these men were deliberately chosen for their illiteracy, rendering them exploitable.

The film details their traumatic and often fatal fight against dangerous working conditions, profound social isolation, and the political indifference that defined their lives as essential, yet disposable, African workers in the diaspora.

Ultimately, the documentary exposes how this period of migration laid the foundation for the complex political and social tensions concerning immigration that persist in France today.

87 minutes | Morocco | 2023