Monique Mbeka Phoba

Monique Mbeka Phoba (born 14 July 1962) is a Belgian-born Congolese filmmaker, screenwriter, journalist, and cultural promoter. Regarded as one of Africa's leading documentary filmmakers, her work has been broadcast on African public television channels, including those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Benin, and Senegal, as well as on European networks such as TV5Monde, RTBF, ARTE, and ZDF. Her award-winning films often address social, cultural, and political issues across Africa. She is the manager of the Brussels-based film production company Rumbacom.

Born in Brussels to a Congolese diplomatic family, she began her media career in the 1980s as a radio presenter while studying business, later earning a degree in commercial and consular sciences from Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels in 1991. She complemented her academic background with training in cultural journalism and worked with the Université libre de Bruxelles radio station as well as RTBF. From 1995 to 2007, Phoba resided in Benin, where she worked for Bénin TV and played a pivotal role in promoting African cinema. In 2000, she founded Lagunimages, a company that later evolved into a film festival dedicated to the production, distribution, and exhibition of African cinema. Since returning to Belgium in 2007, she obtained a degree in screenwriting from Institut des Arts de Diffusion (IAD).