(EDITORIAL) What is this site’s future, how do we talk about all filmmakers who matter, no matter their industry? Thinking of new ways for Screen Comment to get more reach has meant pushing walls out, rethinking editorial lines. What is Screen Comment today, thirteen years after its creation? The filmed entertainment landscape is constantly moving, tentpole franchises number in the double digits, many of which are for children, independent cinema is thriving and Netflix is kicking doors in and taking names, deploying new movies and series constantly. Where does one category end and the next one begin, anyway? There’s too much going on in the small screen not to pay attention to this. Thanks to Amazon Prime Video, YouTube the aforementioned Netflix and Hulu fighting the OP* wars, the entertainment consumer is snowed under with images. Advertising-filmmaking has made some great leaps, too, some commercials going around being far superior to some of the short films we’re treated to at festivals. Besides, I grew up in France and was raised on a diet of commercials by Jean-Paul Goude and Jean-Baptiste Mondino so my sense for the medium was sharpened early.

I got a tip about an advertising filmmaker by the name of Karim Huu Do. I’d never heard of him. What’s my excuse? Among others, I’m not really exposed to ads, at least not passively. I don’t have a TV subscription, but I have a big-screen TV (keeping up appearances and all of that) so I can watch anything available online (I did purchase Youtube Premium, by the way–money well-spent). But it’s a poor excuse, I know. When I went over to Mr. Huu Do’s Vimeo https://vimeo.com/karimhd channel, I sat up.  The images in his short film move unforgivingly fast, the music waits around the corner for you, and you’re instantaneously seduced by the newness, the point of view. I felt the same sort of excitement as when I first heard DJ Shadow, or watched “Melancholia.” Huu Do’s images look familiar but he’s a creator of concepts. I wondered how and when Huu Do’s talent could go in service of filmmaking, meaning, non-advertising filmmaking but feature filmmaking, filmmaking that enriches cinema. Maybe it won’t. Maybe he did already.

I’ve selected my favorite video and added it below. In the future we will devote some more column space to Mr. Huu Do by doing a profile about him.

You can find his personal details here: https://caviar.tv/paris/directors/karim-huudo

*OP = original programming

Ali Naderzad is Screen Comment’s founder and editor. He is based in Paris. Follow him here @alinaderzad