Photo: Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival
From stage to screen, Mariam Elias-Danjuma is just getting started.
In the spring of 2024, thousands of students across the Metro celebrated years of dedicated learning as high school came to a close. At White Bear Lake Area High School (WBLAHS), Mariam Elias-Danjuma graduated as a four-time national speech champion, an advocate for representation and a voice for Black women in the arts.
Crossing the stage was just the start for Elias-Danjuma, who has been using her creativity to uplift her community since she was a child. This June, Elias-Danjuma and fellow WBLAHS graduate Sanyu Mwassa took first place in the duo category at the National Speech and Debate Tournament, becoming the first Black women to win the duo category in the tournament’s history.
It was the culmination of a remarkable speech career for Elias-Danjuma, who joined the team as a sophomore after the debate team dissolved. From the start, she focused her speeches on prose and oral interpretation of Black authors. “My very first speech was The Color Purple by Alice Walker,” Elias-Danjuma says. “Sharing the stories of women before me and women who look like me, representing Black women authors is something I’ll always hold near and dear.”
During this time, Elias-Danjuma also sought new experiences to broaden her network. The summer after her sophomore year, she enrolled in RYSE (Representing Youth Stories and Experiences) MPLS Summer Media Camp, which supports teens in developing short stories. “It’s a growing experience with Speak Minneapolis,” Elias-Danjuma says. “It’s a creative environment working with so many other people from across the country. It inspired me to represent my own community.”
From the experience was born a short documentary film, Sincerely, Black Women, which aimed to showcase what it means to be a Black woman in the 21st century. Elias-Danjuma and RYSE participants Gloria Ngwa and Marylove Ogunro interviewed Metro residents in varying professions to ask, “What does being a Black woman mean to you?”
In her junior year, Elias-Danjuma found a mentor in Anita Ukpokolo, an assistant speech coach and 2015 graduate of WBLAHS. “I wanted to mentor someone who was ambitious and wanted to go far in speech, and that was one of her goals,” Ukpokolo says. The two went on to collaborate and train side-by-side, and Elias-Danjuma performed Beloved by Toni Morrison, which garnered state and national awards. She continued forging her path in speech and filmmaking throughout her high school career, taking home nine wins across multiple events.
In spring 2023, Elias-Danjuma released the short documentary film Her Eyes Spoke. The film focuses on the distorted and inaccurate representattion of Black women in the media. It received an Award of Excellence at the 2024 Best of the Midwest Media Fest.
“We are always looking for ourselves in situations, whether actively or subconsciously, trying to find ways to fit in,” Ukpokolo says. “If you don’t see anybody who reminds you of yourself, it starts to feel like those things aren’t for you. It’s isolating.”
Now a freshman at Temple University in Philadelphia, Elias-Danjuma is pursuing a double major in public policy and film. She has her eyes set on law making and policy change—always with a lens of representation. And her journey in filmmaking is just getting started.
“I have undrafted screenplays in my Google Docs,” Elias-Danjuma says. “I want to continue making media while being in it, and I’m hoping to make a coming-of-age comedy next.”
Elias-Danjuma, now a freshman at Temple University, plans to pursue degrees in public policy and film.
