David is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles, CA. In 2010. Karlak directed the short film The Candidate that went on to make the prestigious Viewfinder List in 2011 and played at film festivals around the world. Following the success of The Candidate, Karlak sold an original sci-fi pitch to Warner Brothers titled “RISE” with Roy Lee producing, and then a second original pitch titled Outliers to 20th Century Fox with Peter Chernin producing. Karlak is attached to direct both films.

In recent years, Karlak has been exploring the use of virtual reality to tell compelling narratives, having directed a virtual reality experience set in the world of “RISE” which premiered it at the Storyscapes series at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014 and a custom VR experience for BMW’s design team in Munich. Mixing his love for storytelling with technology, Karlak has been working to help develop new virtual reality production tools and software as the creative director at Nurulize, a virtual reality software company based in downtown Los Angeles.

In May 2017, Karlak directed a fully immersive VR experience for Alien: Covenant called “In Utero”, with Ridley Scott overseeing as executive producer, in partnership with 20th Century Fox’s FoxNext, RSA VR and Technicolor’s MPC.

Karlak was born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Mexico City.