Born in Los Angeles, Maori is a curator, filmmaker,and writer. She founded BlackStar Film Festival in 2012 and serves as Chief Executive & Artistic Officer of its parent organization, BlackStar Projects. She has organized programs in film at a myriad of organizations including Anthology Film Archives, ICAPhiladelphia, Museum of Contemporary Art(Los Angeles), Penn Live Arts at Annenberg Center, The Underground Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She has organized the exhibitions Terence Nance: Swarm(2023, ICA Philadelphia), Assemblage(2019, Pearlstein Gallery, Philadelphia), and Lossless(2017, Pearlstein Gallery). Her film and video works have screened internationally including the documentary Scene Not Heard: Women in Philadelphia Hip-Hop. She has directed and produced works for Colorlines.com, Visit Philadelphia, as well as many musicians. She hosts the well-received podcast Many Lumens and her writing has most recently appeared in Seen, Documentary Magazine,The Believer, Film Quarterly, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance, and Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media Within Communities Across Disciplines and Algorithms. In 2023, Maori was announced as a recipient of the United States Artists’ Beresford Prize and as an inaugural Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasures Fellow; in 2022, was named as one of the Kennedy Center’s #Next50List; and was a Media maker-in-Residence at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania from 2020-2023 and was a 2019-2020 Soros Equality Fellow. Maori received her MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University, her BA in History from American University, and received formative training at Howard University. She is a founding member of Lalibela Baltimore and is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia and Programmers of Colour Collective. In 2022, Maori was included among Philadelphia Magazine's 100 Most Influential Philadelphians as well as the “Best Film Ambassador”. She was previously named a DOC NYC Documentary New Leader Honoree(2021), included in Essence Magazine’s Woke 100List(2019), served as aFord Foundation JustFilms/Rockwood Fellow (2016), and was a Flaherty Film Seminar Fellow (2014).
