JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA // Meja Shoba is an award winning South African-American writer/director. Her love for film springs from a passion to tell diverse stories with cultural nuance. Her experiences living in South Africa and Oakland, CA influence her approach in exploring niche subcultures with highly cinematic visual style.

After working agency side in New York, Meja went to UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television and received her MFA in Directing. Her films have traveled to numerous film festivals and museum art exhibitions in the US, Europe, and Africa.

Her film, Dear Pearl was a 2015 grand prize recipient of the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) Student Award.

Her fashion film, Boys of Soweto, travelled to numerous film festivals and showcases, including Durban International Film Festival, Berlin Fashion Film Festival, New York Fashion Film Festival, Frontal Film Festival, Africa in Motion, Bokeh International Fashion Film Festival, and as a director guest speaker feature with CinemAfrica Film Festival in Sweden and LACMA’s Young Director’s Night.