Named after Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela, Malcolm Mandela Serrette's upbringing in a family of social justice activists instilled a deep seeded commitment to crafting films that capture the true essence of human fortitude and perseverance. His work as a filmmaker aims to reflect the ideals of his namesakes, striving to uplift and inspire through authentic stories that celebrate the best of humanity. In his debut documentary short in 2003, he shined a light on the issue of racial profiling and police brutality in his hometown of Prince George's County, Maryland. Collborating with his brother Desmond, who received a grant to make the film, they interviewed judges, district attournies, former police officers, local committies that were striving to shed light on the problem, and talked to several mothers that tragically lost their children to police brutality in Prince Georges County. The film earned him a spot at NYU, where he deepened his understanding of producing and cinematography, while simultaneously working his way up the ladder on professional television sets. Within the same year of graduating, he began to camera operate for various MTV shows at the ripe young age of 22.
Two years later he was the Director of Photography for an MTV show, managing a team of 2-3 camera operators, and gaining a reputation for his high-end cinematic, documentary style. This entailed being able to create premium, high quality cinema in documentary settings. He’s brought this style into a 10-episode scripted series by the age of 25, and has continued to refine and improve over the course of his 20 years working in the film and television industry.
More recently, Malcolm completed the filming of Netflix's Rhythm and Flow Season 2 featuring Eminem, Ludacris, DJ Khaled, Latto, Busta Rhymes, Big Sean and more. Not too long previous he DP’d the second season of the NBC show ‘Baking It’, starring Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler. The first season feature the hilarious, Andy Samberg. This show required creatively lighting and setting 11 cameras, and 4 sets, running simultaneously across two stages on the Universal Sound Stages in Studio City, California. Other recent projects he’s recently DP’d include Netflix’s Pressure Cooker, two different up and coming series featuring Gordon Ramsey and Morimoto, and ‘Titan Games’ starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. He ran a crew of 8 operators on Arri Alexas, conceptualized and lit 5 sets and interviews, and upon finishing the 2 month stage portion of the shoot in ATL, hit the road with a skeleton crew to tell the personal stories of the competitors involved. He has spent countless hours traveling to all corners of the country telling stories of people from large and small towns. His approach focuses on cinematically finding and portraying the root of a given persons’ truth. He loves working with big toys and large and budgets, while also having countless hours working with skeleton crews. In these times, necessity is the mother of invention. Regardless of the project, he loves surrounding himself with good spirited, talented people that pride themselves on their unbeatable work ethic.
Malcolm is now based in Los Angeles and works all around the world. He owns Alexa Mini and Sony Venice Packages, an array of his favorite cinema prime and zoom lenses, as well as, a lighting package, and MoVI Pro Gimbal package. He directs and DPs content that’s good for the soul.
When he’s not working, he’s often hanging out with his amazing son and daughter.