Mosireen

Mosireen

Mosireen (Arabic:,مصرّين, English: We Are Determined) is a non-profit media activism collective for the purpose of documenting the events during and after the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The organization provides free training, technical support, equipment and a library, as well as organising public screenings, open discussions and events.^[1] The group is also known for launching the Tahrir Cinema initiative and laying the foundation for mass public screenings across Egypt's governorates.

It is a crowdfunded initiative^[2] that relies on donations from the community it supports. It does not accept any governmental or international funding for its core activities.

Projects

Film production

Since October 2011 Mosireen has published over 250 short documentaries on the revolution.^[3] They are all published without credits and can have between one and thirty people working on any one film. Mosireen's YouTube channel holds the record for most all-time views of a non-profit organization in Egypt with over 5 million total views since October 2011.^[4]

Their films are played as part of the Kazeboon street screening campaign, on independent satellite channels such as Al Jazeera and have been featured at several European festivals.

Revolution Archive

Mosireen hosts an extensive video archive of the Egyptian revolution.^[5] Starting from January 25, 2011 it is constantly updated and has had over 100 film-makers (professional and amateur) contribute their work to it. It is available for public use for free for artists and activists and at industry rates for commercial outlets.

Tahrir Cinema

Tahrir Cinema

The Tahrir Cinema initiative was set up with co-founder, Lara Baladi, as a public media outlet for displaying the Mosireen archival footage and other works by various groups.^[6] It stands facing Tahrir square. The initiative started in 2011 during the 8 July sit-in that lasted three weeks before it was dispersed by force on August 1 by the Egyptian military police.^[7][7] Public display of amateur and professional works continued to reach 15 of Egypt 27 governorates as of early 2012. The public showcase was aimed mainly at the practices and abuses of Egypt current ruling body, SCAF,^[8] through personal testimony and documentaries.^[9]

Campaign support

The group offers its support to several revolutionary initiatives, either in the form of documentation and film production or in the use of its office in Downtown Cairo. Frequent collaborators include No To Military Trials, Kazeboon and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

Re7al

The Re7al project runs extended film production workshops in cities across Egypt.

References