His first short is brilliant. Still got that shock appeal but something a bit more socio realist in there Iirc. Im a fan of him, hes an amazing stylist (eg ETV), though hes not someone with much depth, just good at the sensory impact stuff. Im ok with that personally.
Noe? I haven't seen that short - as far as I know - but now I have two reasons to watch it, firstly just to understand your point here, but also, if I like it and think it's appropriate i could potentially show it at film night.
At first I was making a real effort to show things that were unknown, specifically eschewing things by well-known directors or featuring actors people will recognise but I've slowly come to understand that that's silly.
I showed a film by Svankmaijer and I asked if it was too mainstream and everyone looked at me like i was mental - and they were right. So at first I was trying to aim for stuff where noone attending would have heard of it, but that's not necessary. Of course I want to show films people haven't seen, cos if they have what's the point? But I've been thinking about how many directors have a few shorts tucked away that most people won't have seen, even if they have systematically gone through their feature films and so checking through the back catalogues of famous directors is a resource we can't afford to ignore as it's getting harder and harder to find good films that fit.
Long story short we can show one film a month by a known director and still be bringing stuff which is pretty much one hundred percent unseen by every attendee. And even if somebody has seen one of the films we show it's not the end of the world.
Our other trick is, like a Tory government massaging figures by redefining waiting lists or what counts as unemployed or a healthy school meal, we're also extending the length of "shorts" to 40 minutes to give us more options.