A native of Los Angeles, Maori is a curator, filmmaker and writer. She founded BlackStar in 2012 and serves as its CEO and Artistic Director. Previous professional posts include Executive Director of ARRAY Alliance (2018), Director of Public Engagement at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at University of Pennsylvania (2016-2018), Associate Director at Leeway Foundation (2007-2014), as well as roles with Painted Bride Art Center, Department of Media Studies & Production at Temple, Netter Center at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Independent Film & Video Association, Sony Music, and Washington City Paper. She has organized programs in film at a myriad of organizations including Anthology Film Archives, Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), The Underground Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Maori is currently organizing, Swarm, the first solo show for the artist Terence Nance which will be presented at the ICA and Fabric Workshop & Museum in Philadelphia in March 2023.

As a director, her works have screened internationally including her feature documentary Scene Not Heard: Women in Philadelphia Hip-Hop. She has also directed and produced works for Colorlines.com, Visit Philadelphia, India.Arie, and Mike Africa, Jr. 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 the forthcoming Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media Within Communities Across Disciplines and Algorithms. She has taught filmmaking and film studies at Drexel University, Temple University, University of the Arts, Villanova University, Scribe Video Center, and Philadelphia Community Access Media (PhillyCAM). Maori received her MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University, her BA in History from American University, and studied Costume Design at the graduate level at California Institute of the Arts. 

She is a co-founder of the Anymeans collective, Lalibela Baltimore and is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia and Programmers of Colour Collective. She serves on the board of directors of American Documentary/POV and Asian Arts Initiative as well as the advisory boards of Lightbox Film Center and Ulises.  Maori was recently announced as one of the Kennedy Center’s #Next50 List and was included in Essence Magazine’s 2019 Woke 100 List.  She is a 2019 Soros Equality Fellow and has received grants or awards from John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Leeway Foundation, Independence Public Media Foundation, Women’s Way, and Philadelphia Commission on Human Rights. She was named a Creative Ambassador by Visit Philadelphia in 2009 and was a fellow at the 2014 Flaherty Film Seminar and a 2016 Ford Foundation Rockwood JustFilms Fellow. She serves as Mediamaker-in-Residence at the Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania and Curator-at-Large at Penn Live Arts/Annenberg Center. She began her career with internships at the National Museum of American History and Dallas Austin’s Rowdy Records.