Maresia
Los Angeles, California | Film Short
Horror, Experimental
Maresia shows Cape Verde’s ocean as both love and loss, echoing a people shaped by both separation and resilience. Fátima’s intimate journey with grief transforms the film into a deeply personal story that explores the importance of mental health.
Maresia
Los Angeles, California | Film Short
Horror, Experimental
1 Campaigns | California, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $3,645 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
11 supporters | followers
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Maresia shows Cape Verde’s ocean as both love and loss, echoing a people shaped by both separation and resilience. Fátima’s intimate journey with grief transforms the film into a deeply personal story that explores the importance of mental health.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Logline: After a tragic boatwreck, Fátima finds herself on a deserted island where madness and the supernatural intertwine, forcing her to confront the ghosts of her past
CHARACTERS
Fatima: Fátima is a mother trapped between survival and grief. After the wreck leaves her stranded on the haunted island, she is forced to face her hunger, wounds, and the growing presence of spirits that call out to her. Her love for her late daughter Lurdes drives her deeper into visions, until she can no longer separate the living from the dead and reality from fantasy.
Tó: Tó is Fátima’s husband, whose presence is defined by coldness, resentment, and control. Instead of comfort, he brings cruelty and scorn, embodying the hostility that has long simmered between them. On the island, his dismissiveness of Fátima’s grief turns violent, until reality itself blurs.
Lurdes: Lurdes is the late daughter of Fatima and Tó, who tragically drowned while swimming. Her soul was carried through the waters to a haunted island, a place that absorbs and imprisons the spirits of those who perish near its shores.
THE ISLAND
The Island is not like any other...it is a graveyard of souls. It absorbs and traps the spirits of those who die near its shores, feeding on their pain and longing.
For Fátima, it becomes both a prison and a passage to the next life, a place where thirst and hunger tear at the body while ghosts spiral her mind.
The island symbolizes the collective wounds of Cape Verde. The famine, the separations, and the ocean’s cruel power are both life and death.
STATEMENT
Maresia is a story rooted in trauma from both the personal grief of one woman, Fatima, and the collective wounds of Cape Verde. Set against the setting of the ocean, which represents both life and death, union and distance, the film explores the contradictions of the Cape Verdean identity: the sea as sustenance and joy, but also as loss, separation, and fear.
Fatima’s fall into madness after the death of her daughter reflects silenced grief, the burden often carried by women in such communities, whose suffering is often overshadowed by duty. Her hallucinations of cannibalism and the presence of ghosts mirror the historical traumas of drought and famine that haunt Cape Verdean memory.
Visually, the film captures paradoxes of isolation in openness, where endless horizons create claustrophobia, and water surrounds yet cannot be consumed.
Lending from Cape Verdean music and cultural memory, Maresia intertwines personal pain with collective history, creating a narrative where the ocean, famine, and longing speak are tied to a larger story of identity and survival.
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WHY ARE WE CROWDFUNDING
We are crowdfunding Maresia to carry the film through post-production, festival circulation, and community screenings, while also honoring and covering the production costs that made this project possible.
The funds raised will go toward:
- Post-production (editing, professional sound design, original score inspired by Cape Verdean musical traditions, color grading, and final mastering)
- Festival submissions and distribution materials (submission fees, subtitles, press kit design)
- Outreach (poster design, trailer finishing, promotional assets)
- Community screenings in Cape Verde and the diaspora
- Outstanding production expenses (equipment rentals, location logistics, crew stipends, and deferred payments)
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Airfares from US to Cape Verde
Costs $1,700
We'll need to fly the director and producers to Cape Verde, where we'll be filming
Cast and Crew Rates
Costs $1,500
We want to pay our cast and crew! We hope to use these funds to support the individuals who contributed to this project.
Equipment Rentals
Costs $1,300
We want to rent the best possible equipment within our budget. This set amount will go towards making our film look amazing!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Director Zamzam Elmoge is a Muslim Somali Bantu multidisciplinary storyteller and cultural organizer working at the intersection of documentary, community healing, and creative media. A graduate of Emerson College with a BA in Visual & Media Arts, she leads projects that center diasporic narratives, cultural memory, and underrepresented voices. With experience in nonprofit leadership and visual storytelling, she works as a creative producer and filmmaker whose practice bridges advocacy, migration, and collaborative media-making. She is the founder of ZAMOGE, a creative house and emerging cultural brand dedicated to diasporic stories through film, fashion, and community-based work. The studio functions as both a production hub and a platform for curating experiences rooted in identity, spirituality, and Black global aesthetics. She is also laying the foundation for the ZAMOGE Foundation, created to support artistic, educational, and humanitarian efforts in marginalized and displaced communities. Zamzam has directed and produced documentary and narrative films exploring belonging, intergenerational memory, and cultural preservation, drawing from Afro-diasporic aesthetics and spiritual practices. She served as Director of Operations at SLRO, leading initiatives for refugee and BIPOC communities in Maine. Committed to community, spirit, and storytelling, her work positions art as both archive and action. She was honored with the Catalyst for Change Award and Women of Achievement Award and aims to continue blending film, nonprofit leadership, fashion, and global advocacy.
Writer and Producer Cristina da Luz is a Cape Verdean filmmaker and screenwriter whose work explores the intersections of African folklore, collective memory, and the supernatural. A graduate of Emerson College, where she earned a degree in Film with a minor in Literature, Cristina draws on her Cape Verdean roots and diasporic experience to tell stories that question how history, myth, and trauma shape societies. She is the founder of 32mm Studios, a production company devoted to developing African horror and folk narratives that challenge conventional portrayals of the continent. Through her films, Cristina reimagines traditional forms such as oral histories, proverbs, and rituals within contemporary cinema, using horror as both metaphor and method. Her work examines the blurred line between reality and the supernatural, reflecting how Cape Verdean and broader African cultures perceive the coexistence of the living and the ancestral. Guided by the belief that art can bridge personal and collective healing, she develops projects that celebrate African imagination and culture. Cristina has worked on a range of projects, taking on roles across creative development, producing, directing, and more. Through her evolving body of work, she remains committed to using cinema as a space for cultural preservation and innovation, honoring the past while expanding the possibilities of African storytelling.
Producer Worlanyo is a Writer/Director from a small town in New Jersey. She currently works at WME and completed her BFA in Film Production at Emerson College. There, she received the inaugural Norman Lear Scholarship, dedicated to a future screenwriter from an underrepresented background.
Since then, Worlanyo has worked at companies such as Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions and Paramount Pictures, where she found a love for genre-blending films. She is also an alum of Academy Gold, an exclusive network for emerging filmmakers and entertainment leaders created by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She strives to create narratives that are complex, absurd, and deathly funny while commenting on the world that she and diverse audiences experience daily.
Outside of film, Worlanyo enjoys a mix of ancient history, indie concerts, long walks, and a classic Sunday brunch.
Producer Natalie Amateau is a Los Angeles–based creative whose work bridges written and visual storytelling. She earned her BA in Visual Media Arts Production from Emerson College, where she developed a multidisciplinary background in screenwriting, photography, and creative producing.
Natalie has contributed to numerous short films as a producer, script supervisor, and creative collaborator. She has also supported established writers, directors, and producers on professional sets and in development environments. She is committed to producing work that elevates underrepresented perspectives and brings emotionally grounded storytelling to the screen.
Producer Delany Davis is a current freelance Producer and Director specializing in Narrative production. She graduated from Emerson College in 2024 with a degree in Visual Media Arts Production, with a focus in Producing. Since graduating, Delany has continued her freelance profession and is currently directing and producing a wide variety of short films and feature films, all in the narrative space.
Producer Aidan Douglas is an LA native and Emerson College alumnus. A freelance producer, Aidan has spent 2025 producing independent films while working at a Los Angeles–based production company, assisting senior executives across development and production on film and television projects within Hollywood.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Logline: After a tragic boatwreck, Fátima finds herself on a deserted island where madness and the supernatural intertwine, forcing her to confront the ghosts of her past
CHARACTERS
Fatima: Fátima is a mother trapped between survival and grief. After the wreck leaves her stranded on the haunted island, she is forced to face her hunger, wounds, and the growing presence of spirits that call out to her. Her love for her late daughter Lurdes drives her deeper into visions, until she can no longer separate the living from the dead and reality from fantasy.
Tó: Tó is Fátima’s husband, whose presence is defined by coldness, resentment, and control. Instead of comfort, he brings cruelty and scorn, embodying the hostility that has long simmered between them. On the island, his dismissiveness of Fátima’s grief turns violent, until reality itself blurs.
Lurdes: Lurdes is the late daughter of Fatima and Tó, who tragically drowned while swimming. Her soul was carried through the waters to a haunted island, a place that absorbs and imprisons the spirits of those who perish near its shores.
THE ISLAND
The Island is not like any other...it is a graveyard of souls. It absorbs and traps the spirits of those who die near its shores, feeding on their pain and longing.
For Fátima, it becomes both a prison and a passage to the next life, a place where thirst and hunger tear at the body while ghosts spiral her mind.
The island symbolizes the collective wounds of Cape Verde. The famine, the separations, and the ocean’s cruel power are both life and death.
STATEMENT
Maresia is a story rooted in trauma from both the personal grief of one woman, Fatima, and the collective wounds of Cape Verde. Set against the setting of the ocean, which represents both life and death, union and distance, the film explores the contradictions of the Cape Verdean identity: the sea as sustenance and joy, but also as loss, separation, and fear.
Fatima’s fall into madness after the death of her daughter reflects silenced grief, the burden often carried by women in such communities, whose suffering is often overshadowed by duty. Her hallucinations of cannibalism and the presence of ghosts mirror the historical traumas of drought and famine that haunt Cape Verdean memory.
Visually, the film captures paradoxes of isolation in openness, where endless horizons create claustrophobia, and water surrounds yet cannot be consumed.
Lending from Cape Verdean music and cultural memory, Maresia intertwines personal pain with collective history, creating a narrative where the ocean, famine, and longing speak are tied to a larger story of identity and survival.
WHY ARE WE CROWDFUNDING
We are crowdfunding Maresia to carry the film through post-production, festival circulation, and community screenings, while also honoring and covering the production costs that made this project possible.
The funds raised will go toward:
- Post-production (editing, professional sound design, original score inspired by Cape Verdean musical traditions, color grading, and final mastering)
- Festival submissions and distribution materials (submission fees, subtitles, press kit design)
- Outreach (poster design, trailer finishing, promotional assets)
- Community screenings in Cape Verde and the diaspora
- Outstanding production expenses (equipment rentals, location logistics, crew stipends, and deferred payments)
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Airfares from US to Cape Verde
Costs $1,700
We'll need to fly the director and producers to Cape Verde, where we'll be filming
Cast and Crew Rates
Costs $1,500
We want to pay our cast and crew! We hope to use these funds to support the individuals who contributed to this project.
Equipment Rentals
Costs $1,300
We want to rent the best possible equipment within our budget. This set amount will go towards making our film look amazing!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Director Zamzam Elmoge is a Muslim Somali Bantu multidisciplinary storyteller and cultural organizer working at the intersection of documentary, community healing, and creative media. A graduate of Emerson College with a BA in Visual & Media Arts, she leads projects that center diasporic narratives, cultural memory, and underrepresented voices. With experience in nonprofit leadership and visual storytelling, she works as a creative producer and filmmaker whose practice bridges advocacy, migration, and collaborative media-making. She is the founder of ZAMOGE, a creative house and emerging cultural brand dedicated to diasporic stories through film, fashion, and community-based work. The studio functions as both a production hub and a platform for curating experiences rooted in identity, spirituality, and Black global aesthetics. She is also laying the foundation for the ZAMOGE Foundation, created to support artistic, educational, and humanitarian efforts in marginalized and displaced communities. Zamzam has directed and produced documentary and narrative films exploring belonging, intergenerational memory, and cultural preservation, drawing from Afro-diasporic aesthetics and spiritual practices. She served as Director of Operations at SLRO, leading initiatives for refugee and BIPOC communities in Maine. Committed to community, spirit, and storytelling, her work positions art as both archive and action. She was honored with the Catalyst for Change Award and Women of Achievement Award and aims to continue blending film, nonprofit leadership, fashion, and global advocacy.
Writer and Producer Cristina da Luz is a Cape Verdean filmmaker and screenwriter whose work explores the intersections of African folklore, collective memory, and the supernatural. A graduate of Emerson College, where she earned a degree in Film with a minor in Literature, Cristina draws on her Cape Verdean roots and diasporic experience to tell stories that question how history, myth, and trauma shape societies. She is the founder of 32mm Studios, a production company devoted to developing African horror and folk narratives that challenge conventional portrayals of the continent. Through her films, Cristina reimagines traditional forms such as oral histories, proverbs, and rituals within contemporary cinema, using horror as both metaphor and method. Her work examines the blurred line between reality and the supernatural, reflecting how Cape Verdean and broader African cultures perceive the coexistence of the living and the ancestral. Guided by the belief that art can bridge personal and collective healing, she develops projects that celebrate African imagination and culture. Cristina has worked on a range of projects, taking on roles across creative development, producing, directing, and more. Through her evolving body of work, she remains committed to using cinema as a space for cultural preservation and innovation, honoring the past while expanding the possibilities of African storytelling.
Producer Worlanyo is a Writer/Director from a small town in New Jersey. She currently works at WME and completed her BFA in Film Production at Emerson College. There, she received the inaugural Norman Lear Scholarship, dedicated to a future screenwriter from an underrepresented background.
Since then, Worlanyo has worked at companies such as Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions and Paramount Pictures, where she found a love for genre-blending films. She is also an alum of Academy Gold, an exclusive network for emerging filmmakers and entertainment leaders created by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She strives to create narratives that are complex, absurd, and deathly funny while commenting on the world that she and diverse audiences experience daily.
Outside of film, Worlanyo enjoys a mix of ancient history, indie concerts, long walks, and a classic Sunday brunch.
Producer Natalie Amateau is a Los Angeles–based creative whose work bridges written and visual storytelling. She earned her BA in Visual Media Arts Production from Emerson College, where she developed a multidisciplinary background in screenwriting, photography, and creative producing.
Natalie has contributed to numerous short films as a producer, script supervisor, and creative collaborator. She has also supported established writers, directors, and producers on professional sets and in development environments. She is committed to producing work that elevates underrepresented perspectives and brings emotionally grounded storytelling to the screen.
Producer Delany Davis is a current freelance Producer and Director specializing in Narrative production. She graduated from Emerson College in 2024 with a degree in Visual Media Arts Production, with a focus in Producing. Since graduating, Delany has continued her freelance profession and is currently directing and producing a wide variety of short films and feature films, all in the narrative space.
Producer Aidan Douglas is an LA native and Emerson College alumnus. A freelance producer, Aidan has spent 2025 producing independent films while working at a Los Angeles–based production company, assisting senior executives across development and production on film and television projects within Hollywood.