Kamel Bentot
“I went to school in France. School was always tough for me. As an artist in a conventional school system, I had little to no patience for the formalities those schools were comprised of. I was bored, always thinking about creating something, using my hands and other skills that weren’t taught in my school.”
“At the age of 17, I decided to audition for the International Dance School in Paris to become a professional dancer. There I learned ballet, contemporary, modern jazz, acting and singing. It was such an informative time in my life. I found my own style, and went on to become a professional touring dancer, traveling all over Europe.”
“I have always wanted to tell stories, but never knew how. Growing up, I loved photography, watching movies and music videos. My DVD collection is reaching around 300 DVDs by now. I learned to edit videos to promote my dance classes on YouTube. I spent ages watching tutorials learning how to edit and finesse my craft. One day, a friend of mine asked me to direct their video project because their director bailed on him last minute. Curious, I accepted the challenge. I picked up my Canon 7D and we filmed for two days.”
“My first video as a director was called “Tic Time”. I did everything—the direction, editing, color correcting. After the project was done and I received feedback from my friends and family, I realized, I’m kind of good at this. At that time, I was on tour dancing with a French artist. He saw the video and asked me to give advice to the filmmaker who was following him for his documentary on tour. After that, people began contacting me to film their projects. I had another “ah-ha” moment thinking to myself, ‘Hmm, I really like making videos’. I had the bug. I wanted to create more and more then decided to focus on filmmaking.”
“My mother has always supported me 1000% on any creative project I had in mind. She wanted to be a flight attendant and never had the chance to because her family wasn’t supportive, so she was familiar with the frustrations of an absent support system. I can say that I am lucky to have her behind me, trusting my creative decisions.”
“My biggest influence in my career is Michael Jackson. As a singer, dancer, performer, producer, director and actor, he is one of my biggest inspirations. His mentality was that you don’t have to be good at one thing, you can be great at many things and not fit into a single box. Do what you love and what inspires you.”
“I am currently in Seattle, Washington consulting for a media production company, advising them on how to produce quality videos and photography. I would love to direct full feature films, music videos and commercials. I’m hoping to gain representation as a director in the future.”