Biography

Maxim (Max) Bessmertny (b. 24th December 1988, Russia) is a Macau based director, screenwriter and producer. He is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of The Arts with an MFA in Film Production. Maxim’s narrative short film, the noir mystery ’Tricycle Thief' was the first Macau made short film to World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014. It won the 2015 Kodak Gold Award for best short film and has played at numerous festivals worldwide. He has worked with numerous clients on commercials and advertisements including Zouk Singapore, Pacha, City of Dreams and Wynn Resorts. Maxim’s latest documentary effort is entitled Douro Boys, a documentary about the leading winemakers of Portugal and their wine revolution. His first solo exhibition show was held in 2018 and showcased creative works and short films from the past decade. His short film Sampan, shot entirely on Kodak Super 16mm film, world premiered in his birth town of Vladivostok at the Pacific Meridian International Film Festival in September 2018. In 2017, Maxim was invited to take part in Years of Macau, an omnibus feature film showcasing Macau in the 20 years since its handover in 1999. The film, produced by Tracy Choi, won the Cinephilia Critics award at the 2019 International Film Festival of Macau. That same year, Maxim and his writing partner Jorge Santos won a competitive bid to produce a short feature for Macau Cultural Center’s Local Viewpower competition. Maxim’s feature film project entitled “Investigator Mendonza” was selected by the Torino Film Lab to take part in its extended and creative producing workshops and was also part of the 4th IFFAM Film Market. Maxim moved to Macau with his parents when he was 4 years old and grew up speaking Portuguese, English and his mother tongue, Russian. He grew up in a creative family - his mother is a pianist and his father is a renown artist, painter and sculptor. Having started his career as a video maker for a Hotel Casino, where he studied all of the different departments (kitchen, housekeeping, security, engineering) Maxim quickly took a loving for stories about ordinary everyday people that are somehow involved in a challenging or threatening situation. With an aesthetic that pays homage to classical cinema and some narrative originality, his films are vividly entertaining and slightly melodramatic. Over the last years his work has become more complex and challenging.