About IMARA.
Imara is Swahili for strong and enduring. We hold our work to that.
Imara is Swahili for strong and enduring. We hold our work to that.
“Memories fade. Even the clearest ones. We make films so yours don’t.”
Co-Founder, CEO & Director
Michael Baraka was born and raised in Malindi, where the light gets you long before a camera does.
He studied film in Nairobi, then freelanced across Kenya. Weddings, festivals, musicians. Other people held the contracts. He held the camera.
Then Malindi again. Not passing through this time.
In 2026 he opened IMARA Film with co-founder Florian Alexander, who saw what he saw: a coast full of stories and nobody filming them properly. Not a freelancer with a camera.
A studio.
We built IMARA on one idea: cinematic quality and African storytelling belong together.
A cinematic film and video production studio on the Kenya Coast. Videographer, filmmaker and photographer under one roof, working from Malindi and Watamu across Kenya and beyond. This coast is our home ground. We know its light, its seasons, its hidden corners.
Most studios are still working out what AI means for them. IMARA Film built its own service for it, imarafilm.ai, with a clear line between what we document and what we change.
Image and sound held to the same standard, from location to final mix.