After winning the Leitz Cine Discovery Prize at Cannes 2025, cinematographer Luca Coassin CCS has received the “Iron Camera 300” award of the ICFF Manaki Brothers, in the documentary section, once again with the short film L’Mina by Randa Maroufi.
Jury statement and winner announcement:
“In the category of documentary film, in a section carefully curated by Kumjana Novakova, we were presented with eight works – each offering something distinct and meaningful. The decision was not an easy one. We chose to recognise a film that combines different kinds of images into a carefully constructed visual language, revealing what is often invisible or hidden. A film where the collaboration between the collective of filmmakers and the local community is strongly felt. At a time when genocide is unfolding, and when voices against terror and oppression are being silenced, we believe it is essential to value documentaries that give voice to those who live in darkness, so that light may reach us all. The Iron Camera 300 is awarded to Luca Coassin for L’Mina.”
The film (26’), a co-production between France, Morocco, Italy and Qatar, reconstructs – with the help of the inhabitants themselves – the work in the coal mines of the Moroccan city of Jerada, where extraction has been officially banned since 2001 but continues clandestinely. L’Mina completes the trilogy that the Moroccan-French director has dedicated to three cities of her country, following Le Park (2015) and Bab Sebta (2019), both multi-award-winning at international festivals. Produced by Shatamata Production (France) with the support, among others, of the Doha Film Institute, the Sharjah Art Foundation and the Fondazione In Between Art Film, the short was born out of an artistic workshop lasting over three years, involving both local workers and European professionals. Shot partly in Super 8 mm by filmmaker Wiame Haddad and enriched with 3D scans and complex post-production work, the film blends documentary form and mise-en-scène, with real miners playing themselves. At the award ceremony, the jury of the Semaine highlighted “the immersive force and visual audacity” of the work, emphasising its “political and poetic urgency in giving voice to an invisible community.” With this recognition, L’Mina joins an honours list that in recent years has seen short-film auteurs such as Pedro Almodóvar and Carlo Sironi celebrated. After its world première on the Croisette, the film will continue on the autumn festival circuit and has already been acquired for international sales by Square Eyes.
WE ASKED LUCA COASSIN TO TELL US ABOUT HIS COLLABORATION WITH THE DIRECTOR AND HIS CINEMATOGRAPHIC APPROACH TO THE FILM:
“After the multi-award-winning Bab Sebta: Ceuta’s Gate and The Park (Small Gold Camera 300 at the Manaki Brothers Film Festival 2016), L’Mina is my third collaboration with Randa Maroufi, an artist who prefers to describe herself as a visual artist rather than a film-maker, as her work diverges from traditional cinematic language. L’Mina is both an evolution and, at the same time, a further experiment compared with the previous films. The production was a major team effort: a large crew was involved in the preparation, the shoot and the post-production. Many professionals contributed to a short film that is nevertheless extremely dense, developed over a period of more than three years.
From a cinematographic perspective, the film brings together footage conceived from the outset for intensive post-production with Super 8 mm material shot by Wiame Haddad, all to be integrated with the substantial portion filmed on a studio set. We were therefore running two sets in constant flux. Every shot was a fragment of a puzzle that would ultimately fuse in the edit into a single continuous take. The short’s architecture only truly emerged at the end of the process: a journey into the mines of Jerada through the faces and bodies of the real protagonists rather than actors. A bold, highly experimental work — a portrait of authentic life.
Never before had cinematography needed to work, from the very first stages, in such perfect synergy with set design, in order to give Randa freedom of movement and expression. Colour tests, scenic changes during the process: a stimulating and rigorous work in progress. The photographic approach was conceived with the final post-production in mind, but it was also guided by a meticulous use of optical and colourimetric parameters, so as to portray with maximum control every human and environmental element in front of the lens. Faced with a “human material” of rare beauty and authenticity, I had to restrain my instinct as a cinematographer, often drawn to painterly inspirations, and instead opt for reflected-light set-ups, deliberately stripped of realistic justifications and reduced to the essential. I sought to maintain a natural realism, on the border between documentary and fiction, while remaining faithful to Randa’s vision. From an optical standpoint, the Leica Summicron lenses gave me millimetric control of depth of field: just a few centimetres’ difference, even at many metres away, would have altered the visual message. I also needed the quality and definition required for post-production, without unnecessarily accumulating too many Ks of information.
I thank all my collaborators — assistants, grips, electricians, data managers, colorists, DITs, etc. — without whom the profession of cinematographers could not exist. And, of course, thanks to Randa, who allows me to experiment and learn something new in every project.
