How We Work

Marsa Foundation works on designing and implementing programs of support around four pillars:

  • Creative Catalyst Empowering creative storytelling development and collaboration.
  • Critical Knowledge Fostering knowledge creation and innovative arts and culture discourse.
  • Meeting Points Creative encounters and communal spaces.
  • Fiscal Sponsorship Bridging resources for artistic and cultural activities.
Each of these frameworks acts as a building block towards achieving Marsa's vision to support freedom of creativity and expression in the arts and culture spheres.
We encourage the creation of partnerships and joint programs that cross over thematic, practical or geographical restrictions; fostering innovation and diversity in creative arts.

Partners

We work on long term partnerships with initiatives and organizations to provide financial, fiscal, administrative, and organizational support; to create a solid foundation and a platform for arts, culture, and film programs working to achieve our objectives. We encourage the creation of partnerships and joint programs that cross over thematic, practical or geographical restrictions; fostering innovation and diversity in creative arts.

Marsa is currently partnering with:

Barzakh

Barzakh is a Beirut-based bookshop, performance and community space, cinema club, among other different activities. Barzakh in arabic is the crossing of two worlds over each other: life and death, seawater and stillwater, and in our case identities, online and offline.

Shashat

Shashat is a Tunisian association that works on promoting film culture through its activities across the country, and its projects and initiatives aimed at creating new screening opportunities for films. Additionally, Shashat works on contributing to the development of the critical scene in the region through training workshops for critics and film publications.

Setara Films

Setara Films is a production company based in the Netherlands that focuses on producing stories from Yemen, while its non-profit branch supports emerging Yemeni filmmakers through various filmmaking training programs.

  • Learn More

    Seen Films

    Seen Films is a Cairo-based film house that produces and supports film and media works seeking to live beyond the traditional boundaries of the screen. Seen Films also organizes several film industry and development activities, offers creative and production services; utilizing its storytelling expertise to break through mainstream formats reaching wider interaction with society.

    Comra Academy

    Comra Academy is a film foundation and community center in Yemen dedicated to providing film training, workshops, grants and mentorship programs to aspiring filmmakers with an interest in audio-visual storytelling. At Comra, filmmakers are able to develop their ideas, share their skills and experiences and ultimately collaborate on projects with the support of professional mentors and producers. Comra Academy aims to provide filmmakers in Yemen with the necessary support, networks and tools to tell their stories to the world through creative films.

    the Imaginarium

    Imaginarium Films is an independent production company in Jordan that works on developing and implementing innovative audiovisual projects in the MENA region. Since its establishment in 2011, Imaginarium Films has achieved success in developing and producing numerous award-winning independent films, both locally and internationally

    Activities

    We are currently working on the following programs:

    Creative Catalyst

    Marsa Incubators and Workshops that support artists turn their ideas and stories into viable artistic endeavors. These programs aim to reshape the narrative development process, fostering greater cooperation and interdisciplinary innovation; ultimately to influence how storytellers develop, produce, and show their work. At the core of these programs is our belief in the power and potential of creative collaboration as a foundation for collective community building for artists and storytellers.

    Storyhouse

    A long-term incubator studio for up-and-coming Arab filmmakers that increases the viability of independent storytelling and empowers independent film. Over the course of 12 months, between 12 and 18 film projects from the Arab World will go through a rigorous development process including Creative, Production, and Audience Development.

    Rough Cut Stations

    Guided by social studies scholars, cross disciplinary artists, writers, filmmakers and editors, the stations help filmmakers in their final steps to investigate the structure, narrative, context of their films and find alternative screening and distribution possibilities.

    Critical Knowledge

    Imagines and creates platforms and spaces (virtual or physical) concerned with researching, archiving, creating, and publishing knowledge that deals with art, culture, media, and film and their relation to socio-political realities. Approaching knowledge production through critical, creative, collaborative artistic lenses. Using a combination of artistic and research methodologies, Marsa questions existing knowledge production systems and institutions and attempts to create alternative ways of thinking about and producing knowledge grounded in artistic and communal knowledge productions.

    Terr.so

    Online magazine and portal on cinema, audiovisual media, film criticism and filmmaking in Arabic. Terr.so is a pan-Arab critical, creative, interactive, and progressive media platform and website which hosts articles, documents, news, and tutorials on cinema, media, filmmaking, and contemporary discourse.

    BETA

    An initiative to activate and publicize the wealth of knowledge in the archives within Arts & Culture organizations and institutions in the Arab world. Yearly, Marsa identifies 2-3 organizations and institutions in order to activate their institutional archives and share them with wider publics. Through storytelling and publishing workshops, and partnerships with writers, designers, filmmakers, artists, and web developers, Beta aims to creatively publish institutional archival knowledge to be more accessible and impactful.