If you’re not already familiar with Khoa Le and his work, here’s a short introduction for you: the director, producer, and entrepreneur of Vietnamese origins has been making headlines for quite a while now with his filmmaking projects such as Walt Before Mickey, the much-awaited live-action business movie Bezos, which is going to hit the screens this fall, and his two upcoming documentaries on Vanilla Ice and Jose Feliciano.
Given his cinematic track record, it would be easy to put Khoa Le in a box and label him as just another biopic or documentary filmmaker. And although he does dedicate part of his time to making movies about personalities of our time, he’s also a man of many talents and enjoys delving into multiple areas of activity. So, let us provide further background and context on his personal and professional trajectory so far.
Life and career
Khoa Le was born in Chanthaburi, Thailand, in 1980, as a refugee immigrant from Vietnam. At the age of 5, he became a citizen of the United States. During his childhood, he spent some time in foster care, due to his mother’s sickness, and lived in the ghetto of Jersey City, NJ, so he learned from a very young age that you have to fight if you want to make things happen and stand up for what you believe in. He’s also a proud family man, and despite his busy schedule, he always finds time to be with his wife and two boys.
Today he’s a successful filmmaker and entrepreneur, using his skills and experience not only to bring his artistic vision to life but also to bring about meaningful change to the art world and the entertainment industry. Khoa Le’s talents go well beyond directing and producing movies. At the moment, he’s running two thriving companies, Kvibe Studios, and Live Picture Studios.
His first business, Kvibe Studios, which started as an e-commerce social media platform meant to connect people with artists, writers, and producers to create original music, has now developed into a full-service production studio. At one point, he decided to venture into the wedding industry, where he saw great potential, as a cinematic video director for weddings, so in 2012 he started Live Picture Studios, a cinematic and photography business for the wedding industry.
All his professional efforts paid off and brought him many accolades over the years. In 2014, he won the Sbdc Small Business of The Year Award, for Kvibe Studios, which was also selected for Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. He also managed to catch the attention of the USPAACC, the largest Asian Chambers of Commerce in the U.S., due to his fast-growth strategies, bringing in over 50% of revenues each year. Thus, he became the President of the North East Chapter of the Us Pan Asian American Chambers of Commerce, bringing his contribution to helping communities in business, technology, sciences, arts, sports, and education. In 2018-2021, Khoa also received the “Fast 100” award from the USPAACC.
Meet Sutudu, the NFT platform that is set to change the art scene
As you can see, Khoa Le is no stranger to the entertainment industry and he’s achieved a great deal of things in his career already, but by far the most exciting and ingesting project Khoa Le has ever worked on is his latest venture Sutudu, an NFT platform that aims to help artist collect residual income and enjoy the financial freedom that would allow them to continue their creative process.
Coming from very humble beginnings and starting out in an industry that is beyond competitive and challenging, especially for newcomers, Khoa has always felt that if he would ever have the opportunity to change the industry for the better, he would do his very best to make things happen. And that’s how Sutudu, which stands for freedom in Vietnamese came into existence.
But what is Sutudu all about, you might wonder, and how can it help artists achieve financial freedom? In his own words, Sutudu is “about providing a platform that will allow creative artists to have an opportunity to sustain themselves in doing what they love doing.” Khoa believes that art systems such as Hollywood are inherently broken, in the sense that they own a monopoly on financing and distribution of creative products, to the detriment of artists. Sutudu aims to change the way artists manage their projects by providing a platform where they could finance, promote, distribute and collect money for their creative work.
Sutudu relies on NFT technology to change the way business is conducted in the art and entertainment scene and give artists complete control of their content distribution. In preparation for launching the platform, which is set to happen in the Summer of 2022, Sutudu has developed a project where they partnered up with 2000 artists who will drop 2000 NFTs on the platform.
In doing so, Sutudu will be able to represent each artist’s NFT project, serving not only as a springboard for their creative work but also as a means to bring these projects in front of supporters, buyers, and investors. NFTs have the potential to turn into the driving force behind the entertainment industry due to their unique technology features. The 2000 Artist NFT Project can represent the starting point for a new business model that can spark new opportunities for artists and lead to a more encouraging and sustainable art scene.
The platform will include multiple services such as crowd fundraising, marketing, or consultation, all aiming at providing more freedom for the artistic community and building trust and transparency in an industry that is known for being selfish and self-serving. According to Khoa Le, it all boils down to giving back to the community, and although the goals he has set out to achieve are quite bold, there’s no denying that his passion and leadership skills will ultimately ensure the success of his venture.
