Today we’d like to introduce you to Mona Maahn.
Hi Mona, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am originally from Hamburg, Germany, and although film was a lifelong interest, I stumbled upon the career path by chance. While in London pursuing a journalism degree and drowning in research, I took a class on broadcasting. After filming a mini-doc on the student protests at the time, I felt creatively stimulated like never before and something clicked – I knew I wanted to tell stories, not report on them. I moved to New York and received both an undergraduate and master’s degree in film at Columbia University. There, I met filmmakers that would become my collaborators and network, polished my skills as both a storyteller and producer, and was the recipient of the Filmhaus Foundation Award as well as the Leone Family Film Grant.
While in New York, I produced short films that went onto festivals such as Palm Springs and Telluride, as well as being the Associate Producer on Saim Sadiq’s film Joyland, which won the Queer Palm and Jury Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Currently, I’m located in Los Angeles, where I work in the production arm of a management company focused on developing stories. Throughout my career, I have embraced two fundamental principles that have shaped my growth as a producer: the eagerness to collaborate with talented individuals and the commitment to approach every story from the perspective of our shared human experience.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Speaking of shared human experiences… COVID. Every industry was touched by the pandemic, and so I’m sure this is a common feeling everywhere, but for me, it felt like a giant remote control had pressed pause on my career. While road-tripping across the US with my partner and my dog, I remotely worked for various production companies. Since productions were shut down, that mainly meant reading and re-reading pitched projects and projects in development. I tried to stay current with scripts and entertainment, but at the time there was no light at the end of the tunnel and it didn’t seem like we’d ever return to normal. From that, though, came an acceptance of a new normal, and through Zoom, I began to oversee production on multiple projects as restrictions started to lift. The silver lining to that is that I believe given the intensity of the lockdown, everyone came out of it ready to work on things and hit the ground running, and luckily I feel like I’ve been able to harness that mentality and keep it even today. Lastly, COVID showed us the importance of film and television not only as a way to maybe relax, laugh or learn new things but also again as something to bring us closer together, even if it was just the world obsessing together about TIGER KING.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Producer is a job with many hats, but my main area of interest and expertise lies in development. That could mean finding a new project or helping develop an existing one, be it original or adapted from source material. I am a firm believer that a movie or a TV show will only ever be as good as its script, which is why I think this stage of the process is the most crucial, and why I can be relentless in getting the script as strong as possible before production. My passion is projects grounded in reality, things that feel like they could be snapshots of real life, but especially the moments in life where things are most trying and where people are their most tested. My experience as a writer, and originally in journalism, has led me to approach stories less from the angle of a producer and more from the angle of a writer: Instead of how do we get this made, the question becomes how do we get audiences to connect with characters and the narrative more intensely? Every story is about empathy, it’s about making somebody feel something, and my skill comes in being able to use empathy to find the things that matter most to the audience and to support creatives in making their films even truer to their visions. I believe film and TV hold immense power to bring people in this world closer together, and it is done through empathy and understanding.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Wow, that feels like an impossible question to answer. Something that stands out is going to work with my mother as a small child. She worked in Germany as a television show host, and every night she would interview another in a long line of celebrities plugging their newest projects. Occasionally, I’d get to tag along to the soundstage, which was my earliest introduction to the world of film. I enjoyed going and being shown around by all the people helping make the show a reality – sound engineers and light technicians who were happy to kill some downtime by showing a little kid around the set. In a childish way, I distinctly remember feeling like I possessed some secret knowledge of a world others only saw perfected on TV – perhaps that feeling still draws me to it today, knowing how much work and how many amazing people go into what is later consumed onscreen. Something that still sticks out to me even so many years later is all the snacks on set, which is why as a producer, I make sure to always have an enticing crafty table – good food on set can change the entire vibe.
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Image Credits
©JOYLAND, Khoosat Films
