Both an initiation novel and a philosophical tale, Malboire makes no concessions concerning personal and collective responsibility vis-à-vis ecological disasters. “They knew, yet they did nothing”- this is the leitmotif whenever the past is mentioned.

Somewhere on earth between the mountains and the sea – a heathland after an ecological disaster has made the ground unfit for any kind of agriculture or food consumption. The survivors live with their eyes turned towards the skies waiting for rain, or down towards the mud where death awaits them - never ahead. There is no horizon for them. Being wary of others is the rule and violence the mode of survival.

An old man, Arsen, still has his memories, an appetite for the future and above all a plan: drilling a bore hole into the ground to access drinking water under the Malboire (toxic mud) so as not to be dependent on rainfall. And Arsen takes in a young man, Zizare, whom he has freed from a ceaseless wandering through the mud, and also his partner, Mi-Voix, who has been cast out of the neighbouring village. He encourages them to have a taste of adventure and doesn’t try to stop them when they decide to leave, having heard news of a dam whose lake would appear to contain a great quantity of water. A possible chance to give back life to the valley and sweep away all this Malboire.