VERSION FRANÇAISE

Who are we?

SAMAR Media is a web citizen media dedicated to the Arab world. It produces and broadcasts online videos in Arabic, English and French. These videos address the realities and underlying dynamics that are reshaping the MENA region, and shed light on inspiring individuals and innovative projects from this region and the Arab diaspora. SAMAR also thrives on promoting citizen voices: it offers its followers, the SAMAR Citizens, to take part in their media by sharing their own video production and picks.

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Following the 2011-12 Arab uprisings, SAMAR Media released its first web video series on “the Cartoonists from the Arab World”. It has since then produced more than 200 videos.

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These videos have been watched by 2,000,000 viewers throughout the world. The most recent web program broadcast by SAMAR last April covers the emergence of an ‘underground’ rap scene in the MENA region. This series is entitled “Rap Generation: the Beat of the Street”.

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SAMAR’s video production gives special attention to arts and culture as they are drivers of creativity, exchange and knowledge. The series “This Is Palestine” illustrates this approach, as it puts forward the dynamism of the artistic scene in Palestine.

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Finally, SAMAR holds a particular interest in questions related to exile, migration and diasporas. For instance, in 2015 SAMAR went to meet “the Lebanese of West Africa”.

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All the videos produced by SAMAR can be found on www.samarmedia.tv and YouTube.

What do we aim for?

On 16th of June 2016, SAMAR Media, in partnership with La Villa Méditerranée in Marseilles, will organize an event dedicated to the theme of “Exile and Migrations in the Mediterranean”. This public event will offer the widest possible audience a different approach to the “refugee crisis”, including alternative media coverage and a unique artistic performance.

On 16th of June, Farah Chamma and Mustapha Slameur, young Spoken Words artist from Palestine and Morocco, will declaim their verses and rhymes over the music played by a Syrian orchestra led by Basel Khalil, a master musician of the Andalusian guitar from Damascus. Currently scattered across Europe, these musicians will be reunited for the occasion.

We hope that this unique show will be a memorable moment, enjoyed by the widest possible audience in Marseilles on 16th of June, and simultaneously shared on social media. It will be additionally immortalized by a new video series shot for the occasion, and broadcast in September 2016.

In order to achieve this beautiful artistic and human project, SAMAR Media needs the support of the Kiss Kiss Bankers!

Art & Exil en Méditerranée