Monique Phoba Mbeka

Born in 1962, Monique Mbeka first worked as a host on a free radio station in the early 1980s while studying commercial sciences. For her cultural program on Africa, she met André Van In, a trainer from the Varan workshop, which had recently taken place in South Africa during the last year of Apartheid. On his advice, she participated in a workshop in 1991 and then embarked on a career as a documentary filmmaker. After 20 years of a career widely broadcast on African public television stations (in Congo, Benin, or Senegal, among others), as well as on the French-language channel TV5, Radio-Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF), the ARTE channel, and ZDF in Germany, Monique Mbeka decided to explore new perspectives and obtained a master's degree in screenwriting from the IAD (Institute of Arts of Diffusion) in Belgium.

In 2008, Monique Mbeka Phoba completed a documentary on the Zaire national team, the Leopards, which shone in the 1974 football World Cup. This team was the first from Sub-Saharan Africa to participate in a FIFA World Cup. Entre la coupe et l’élection (Between the Cup and the Election) was co-directed with Guy Kabeya Muya. From 1995 to 2007, Monique Mbeka Phoba lived in Benin, where she has worked on production, distribution and promotion of African cinema. She created the Lagunimages TV and documentary festival in 2000.

Her first short fiction film, Sœur Oyo (awarded three times), has been screened 50 times across three continents—Europe, Africa, and America—at festivals and during community events. Today, Monique Mbeka is involved in writing her first feature-length fiction film and a television series. She is the manager of the Brussels-based film production company Rumbacom.