Mintslate Media was never designed around a single voice or dominant vision. Instead, it emerged from friendship, shared creative values, and a collective commitment to telling stories that remain emotionally honest, unfiltered, and grounded in lived experience.
Founded in February 2025 by filmmaker Seyi Oluwatimilehin, Mintslate Media was conceived as a creative home for narratives that resist simplification. From the outset, the company attracted collaborators who believed that truth in storytelling should not be softened for comfort, but explored with care, intimacy, and emotional realism.
“I founded this company alongside my friends Reke Avikpe, who served as executive producer, Jaeden Royer Alexander, who was the art director on all the films; Jason Manzi, who directed Her Skin, Her Sin; and Leeindo Kelly,” Oluwatimilehin explains.
That foundation of trust quickly became central to Mintslate Media’s working culture. Rather than imposing rigid hierarchies or formulaic creative processes, the company prioritised collaboration across every department. Directors, actors, and crew members were encouraged to engage deeply with the material, allowing stories to develop organically and with emotional clarity.
As both producer and director on Job Seekers and No One Wants Me, Oluwatimilehin describes carrying a deep sense of responsibility toward the characters and narratives under his care.
“As a producer and creator of these projects, I almost feel like a parent to all of these characters,” he says. “That feeling runs even deeper for me as the director of No One Wants Me and Job Seekers.”
This sense of responsibility extended directly into performance. Trust in the actors, according to Oluwatimilehin, was essential to achieving the level of emotional honesty the stories demanded.
“Kale and Hannah, in No One Wants Me, handled their characters as if they truly knew them, as if they were lives they had lived before,” he notes. “Their performances felt deeply intuitive and honest.”
The same collaborative ethos shaped Job Seekers, a psychological horror film co-directed by Seyi Oluwatimilehin and Alan Vega. Starring Mauranda Nunes as Maya and Marcel Albers as Dr. Wendi, the film explores subtle power dynamics and restrained emotional tension.
“Marcel and Mauranda were an especially powerful duo,” Oluwatimilehin says. “Marcel came onto set with a very strong ‘dad’ energy, and by the end of the shoot, he was a different person.”
Marcel Albers, reflecting on his role, describes the emotional weight of the character he portrayed. “Audiences should expect me to portray my character with the psychotic tendencies that he has, and to display his lack of caring for other people,” he says.
Another key Mintslate Media project, Her Skin, Her Sin, directed by Izaiah Dockery and Jason Manzi, explores themes of racism, control, and conditional acceptance within an intimate domestic setting. The film stars Sableena Gill as Priya, alongside Matt Gallagher as Ethan and Robyn Kotsopoulos as Margaret.
“My perspective was to create a story that is relevant and yet rarely represented on Canadian screens,” Jason Manzi explains. “A story that many racialised people face when trying to move through the world with love, but are still judged because of factors beyond their control.”
For Oluwatimilehin, collaboration is not simply a method of working, it is the foundation of Mintslate Media’s identity.
“These films are deeply rooted in real experiences,” he says. “Mintslate Media exists to help bridge that gap. Through our work, we aim to create stories that feel lived-in, intimate, and unmistakably human.”
Through shared vision, trust, and creative care, Mintslate Media has built more than a debut slate of films. It has established itself as a production company defined by collaboration, emotional honesty, and storytelling designed to linger long after the screen fades to black.
