Maia Lekow is an award-winning musician and filmmaker who uses her art to explore cultural and societal beliefs not only in Kenya but across the globe.
She co-founded the production company Circle and Square Productions in Nairobi with her husband way back in 2009, barely two years after settling in Kenya.
She has since won several awards, including one in 2009, which she was awarded following her song “Uko Wapi”, which featured a collaboration between various Kenyan and Australian artists.
Her documentary film The Letter (2019), which she co-directed, was selected as Kenya’s official submission for the 93rd Academy Awards as Best International Feature in 2021.
This year, she won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at the Sundance Film Festival 2025 for her film, ‘How to Build a Library’.
The ‘How to Build a Library’ documentary is a film centred on two women who left their jobs to transform a dilapidated library in Nairobi city, the McMillan Memorial Library. In the process, they navigate local politics and confront Kenya's colonial past.