Mboni Maumba is a Tanzanian-Chinese filmmaker based in Los Angeles. As a designer, she is a two-time Student Oscars winner for The Chef’19 and Shedding Angels’22. Her first feature film, The Listener’22, directed by Steve Buscemi and starring Tessa Thompson premiered at The Venice Film Festival, Giornate Degli Autori section.
Mboni loves story and production design fiercely, perhaps more than anything in the world. She is steered by a passion to mould images into speaking more than words ever could, with a strong belief that the truth is often what is not spoken but exhibited subtly.
Mboni’s viewpoint is strongly influenced by a juxtaposition of the cultures and lifestyles she adapted to while moving from country to country since childhood, no more than a couple of years in every place. A key moment that shaped her storytelling was at an experimental hub in New Mexico(The UWC Movement that has been nominated for The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize) that selected 200 teenage representatives from over 90 countries to live and learn from one another’s culture for two years, away from the rest of the world. It is in this place that she witnessed a Palestinian and an Israeli progress from sharing a meal table to a genuine friendship, and stayed up countless nights debating with her roommates from Syrian and North Korea about the refugee crisis. This inspired Mboni to tell stories that challenge the modus operandi of cultures, through main characters who are fluid enough to blend in anywhere yet truly belong nowhere.
The film she designed, Arabian Alien explores homosexuality and repercussions in Saudi Arabia and premiered at Sundance 2020, won best narrative at the 2020 Atlanta Film Festival. In The Chef, a retiring chef and a humanoid apprentice bond through traditional Chinese cooking, and was a winner in the 2019 Student Academy awards.
Mboni’s native languages are Swahili and Mandarin. She is fluent in English, and conversational in French.
Awards
2019 - Best Production Design - Florence, The Los Angeles Cinematography Awards.
Select Team Exhibition/Awards
2021 - Criterion Collection and Palm Springs International Film Festival - Like Flying
2020 - Sundance Festival, official selection - Arabian Alien
- Atlanta Film Festival, winner - Arabian Alien
- Palm Springs International Film Festival - Arabian Alien
- Venice Film Week , official selection - The Chef
- Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, winner - Furthest From
2019 - Student Academy Awards, silver - The Chef
- AT&T Film Awards, winner - The Chef
- Savannah film festival, best short - The Chef
- Show Me Shorts - best narrative - The Chef