Max-Arthur Mantle : Writer/Director/Producer

Max-Arthur Mantle is a Jamaican-born author, photographer, and filmmaker. His work is centered around highlighting, celebrating, and elevating Black and Brown, LGBTQ+, and Caribbean, particularly Jamaican narratives. He studied Journalism and Photography at Howard University (Washington, DC) and served in the US military (Navy). 

His debut novel Batty Bwoy, self-published in 2015, is the coming-of-age story of Mark Palmer, a black, gay, Jamaican, where “Boom bye bye inna batty bwoy head” (meaning, gunshot to gay men) has replaced the island’s motto “Out of many one people.” The son of an overbearing, neglectful mother, he is thrust into an environment that requires a thick skin from torments and socio-economic disparities. Suppressing his “gay tendencies” to avoid being bashed or murdered, he migrates to America and breaks free from the closet to a world where he is marginalized. As his life spirals from bad choices, he clings to desperate measures and finds hope.

In photography, Mantle worked as a freelance fashion photographer in Miami Beach and New York City in the early 2000s, shooting portfolios for agency-represented models and garnering fashion editorials and covers for US and international fashion magazines. He is known for shooting the last cover of BLUE+66 magazine (Australia's premier photo art high-end magazine) and a 2012 photo book "Beach Boys" published by Bruno Gmunder (Berlin, Germany).

In film, Mantle directed and produced the groundbreaking documentary VISIBLE: The LGBTQ Caribbean Diaspora (2023), which features 30 participants who deconstruct what it means to be Caribbean, LGBTQ, and living in North America. BATTY BWOY! inspired by the novel, it is noted as making history as the first gay Jamaican feature film and with a Jamaican-led cast on the island, Time magazine called "The Most Homophobic Place on Earth."

I was twenty-one in 1992 when Buju Banton released his gay-hate dancehall reggae anthem "Boom Bye Bye." A popular song that sounded the alarm about killing gay men in Jamaica. I was preparing to attend university in Jamaica. Knowing I was gay, I began to monitor my behavior, and like a priest taking a vow of celibacy, I was going to devote my adult life to being a closeted academic in a country where being gay is not only criminalized by colonial-era buggery laws, but vigilante beatings and murders of gay men are commonplace. Then my father filed for me to migrate to America, and I exhaled. It meant not only socio-economic mobility but also the chance to explore my identity without fear, on my terms.

At Howard University, I evolved from an awkward freshman to a socially valued, trailblazing upperclassman. After university, my brief, traumatizing stint in the US military (Navy branch) thickened my skin and threw me a curveball different from the life I had planned. I recovered and became a working fashion photographer in Miami Beach, shooting covers for international magazines with a body of work culminating in two photo books. With the setbacks came other opportunities and pursuits. My 2015 novel, Batty Bwoy, is the inspiration for BATTY BWOY!, first presented as a short film, and with realized funding, the feature will make history as the first Jamaican gay feature film and first US/Jamaican international production led by a Jamaican cast. My previous film project, VISIBLE: The LGBTQ Caribbean Diaspora documentary (2023), has screened throughout the world at film festivals, LGBTQ organizations, and universities, including Dartmouth College and Pennsylvania State University.

My creative pursuits are personal. My work is centered around highlighting, celebrating, and amplifying Black and Brown, LGBTQ+, and Caribbean, particularly Jamaican, narratives that are often silenced. Fueled by the desire to protect queer youths who, like me, were almost killed by an angry homophobic mob in Jamaica and were unseen by a society that does not value queer existence. I wondered what kind of life I would have had if I had stayed. I fear I would have been reduced to a fraction of who I am today.

This film is not only important, but it is needed. It will resonate not only with LGBTQ+ Jamaicans, but with the international LGBTQ+ community as well as anyone, irrespective of their sexual orientation, gender, race, or religion. It advocated for change and supported and emphasized marginalized groups who are oppressed by inhumane laws that promote ignorance and disparities in communities that foster inequalities and injustice. This is a human rights story with a poignant social impact premise. The tangible impact of this film will be immeasurable. It can not only change hearts and minds, but can also catalyze change.

Massimiliano Trevis was the director of photography on feature films, PRIMO LEVI’S JOURNEY, MAFIA SIGNS, SFIORARSI, CUORE SCATENATO (Best Cinematography at the New York Int. Film Festival 2008), ULTIMO STADIO and ON THE 45TH PARALLEL as well as several award winning short films. Among over 50 motion pictures for which he has served as Camera and Steadicam operator, second unit director are TITUS, EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING, RIPLEY’S GAME and the 2006 Italian Academy Award nominated DON’T TELL. Tv shows; RAY DONOVAN, AMERICAN CRIME, AQUARIUS, ALL AMERICAN.

Born in Palermo, Sicily, his father was an actor and owner of a TV network. Having been raised “on set”, he took particular interest in the camera. The set was his playground and the camera and its equipment his toys.

By the age of 13, Massimiliano had his first job as a camera operator. At the age of 24, he movied to Rome to further his career, and within two years, started working as a Director of Photography.

Over the years Massimiliano has drawn inspiration from such cinematography legends as Vittorio Storaro, Gordon Willis, Robert Richardson, Giuseppe Rotunni, and Tonino Delli Colli.

With his keen ability to interpret the director’s visions through light, Massimiliano doesn’t just light the set and actors, but creates “moods” that follow the story lines. Known for his three-dimensional style of lighting, Trevis’s method of starting with the background and moving to the foreground with his lighting, creates the feeling as if the viewer is watching the scene with their natural eye. Massimiliano never approaches his projects using the same style of lighting, recognizing that each story is different and therefore should have its own lighting to complement and serve the story.

In December 2005, Massimiliano moved to Los Angeles, California with his family.

Chris Browne is the most experieced filmmaker in Jamaica.

Born in St. Elizabeth, a rural area of Jamaica, Christopher Browne grew up living the simple life; no telephones and no television until he was twelve. He was schooled at De Carteret College, Mandeville, and later in England. 

Following high school, he moved to the United States where he started his Bachelor of Arts degree at The Atlanta College of Art. In the summer of 1982, he worked as the assistant to his uncle, Perry Henzell, director of the iconic Jamaican film, "The Harder They Come" (1971) starring international reggae star Jimmy Cliff, on Henzell’s second feature, "No Place Like Home" (2006).  Chris Browne decided to change his major to pursue a career in film. He changed his major to film and went to The Art Institute of Chicago and to Columbia College in Chicago.

After his studies in 1984, he returned to Jamaica to work for various foreign film companies which used Jamaica as a location. He was 2nd assistant editor on Club Paradise (1985), assistant art director on Cocktail (1988), and camera assistant on films including Cool Runnings (1992) and How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998). 

Browne wrote, produced, and directed his own short films including  "So It Go" (1985), "Crossfire" (1989), "Star" (1991), "Country of the One Eye God" (1992), "Final Verdict" (1993), and "Entry Denied" (1996).

"Crossfire" (1989) won best short film at the Caribbean Film Festival in Martinique, screened at the London Film Festival, and was released in Jamaican cinemas to great reviews. The film "Entry Denied," also written by Browne, won best short film at the International Jamerican Film & Music Festival in 1999.

In 1990 and 1993, he was awarded a JAMI (Jamaica's equivalent to the Grammy) for direction and cinematography of the Best Music Video. In 1996, Browne was awarded the John F. Kennedy Fellowship of the Americas in film to pursue research on current and potential markets in the United States for film.

In 1996, Browne directed and produced the pilot for the "Uprising" series by Banyan, a film company based in Trinidad. 

Browne co-wrote and directed his first feature film, "Third World Cop" (1999) for Palm Pictures, which had its world premier at the Toronto Inernational Film Festival (TIFF). The film was released a month later in Jamaica by Palace Amusement with the highest box office gross in Jamaica's history and  running for an unprecedented four months. It was distributed internationally by Palm Pictures in Toronto, New York, Miami, and London, where it ran for two months at the Ritzi cinema in Brixton, London.