 Her father, Mohamed Maïga was murdered in 1987, a few months before the Head of State in Burkina Faso was killed in a coup.Maïga landed a role alongside Yvan Attal in Denis Amart's Saraka Bô (1996), her acting was well received and she went on to play a rebellious young girl in Michael Haneke's Code Unknown (2000) and his later film Caché (2005).Her work in Cédric Klapisch's Russian Dolls (2005) cemented her role as a notable performer in French cinema.