Maximilian Badier-Rosenthal grew up in a mixed culture, with a French father and a Vietnamese mother. Back in France after obtaining a degree in Chinese in Beijing, he wrote and directed his first short film at the OMJA in Aubervilliers. While participating in the Génération Court Festival, he met Yassine Qnia who produced with Nouvelle Toile Production his first short film, Ông Ngoai, in 2016. The film was inspired by an event Maximilian experienced with his grandfather, and it screened in the 1st edition of Ici Vietnam Festival Cinéma in 2018 . In 2020, he shot his second short film, Malabar, produced by Don Quixote Films, about an accidental encounter in the middle of the night between two young people and a Vietnamese old man.