Dirk Manthey was born on 13 December 1960 in Madrid (Spain). He studied ethnology and Romance studies in Hamburg until he began working as a director and producer in 1996. In 2000 he founded the Dirk Manthey Filmproduktion in Hamburg with which he produced a large number of short and long feature films and documentaries, that he partly also directed. The short documentary film "Motodrom" ("Moto Drome", 2006, director: Jörg Wagner), about hell-riders at a fairground, won the ZDF-Dokukanalpreis at the KurzFilmFestival Hamburg and the Camera Award at the Aspen Shortsfest (USA). Manthey's directorial works include "Schmuck der Straße" (2010, together with Rosa Baches), about three Latin American transwomen living in Hamburg St. Pauli, and "Volkspoeten" (2011), about a Brazilian poet wandering through the Brazilian hinterland.    

The feature film "Anderswo" (2014, director: Ester Amrami), produced by Dirk Manthey Film, has also won several awards, including the Dialogue en perspective prize at the Berlinale 2014 and Best Feature Film at the Potsdam Festival Sehsüchte. Other Manthey productions include the TV film "1000 Mexikaner" (2016, directed by Philipp Scholz) and the documentary "Los Reyes" (DE/CL 2018, directed by Bettina Perut, Ivan Osnovikoff), which won the Special Jury Award at the Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival. In 2017 Manthey began working on his documentary "Small Planets", for which he travelled to places so remote or isolated that they exist virtually untouched by the rest of civilisation. The film was released in German cinemas in December 2019.    

In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Manthey has been working as a lecturer, for example at the Film Academy, Quito, Ecuador (2008/2009) and at the WWU Münster (2018/2019).