Director Viesturs Kairišs was born in Riga, 1971. Since graduating from the Latvian Academy of Culture, Department of Film and Theatre Directing in 1997 he has made several notable feature films and documentaries. Kairish made his filmmaking debut in 1998 with a short film titled The Train.
The short drama The Wedding followed 2 years later, bringing him the National Film Award Lielais Kristaps for the Best Film of 2000. In 2001 Kairish directed his first feature-length movie Leaving by the Way (National Film Award for the best feature of 2001 and an award for the best debut at the Raindance Film Festival U.K.2002.) In 2001 he participated in the 49th Venice Bienniale with short film Magic Flute. In 2006 followed his 2nd feature-length film The Dark Deer. Most notable documentaries include Lohengrin from Varka Kru (2009), Pelican in the Desert (2014).
He has staged productions at all of the major Latvian theatres that have also been visited on tour performances Tallinn, Helsinki, Lisbon, Oldenburg, London and Berlin. Viestur Kairish debuted as an opera director in 1999 with Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at the Latvian National Opera (received he Latvian Great Music Award 2000). Since 2000 Kairish has become a known opera director at the Latvian National Opera Die Zauberflöte (2001) Die Walküre (2007) and Siegfried (2008) Il Trittico (2011) and also Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream (2013) at the Komische Oper Berlin, and Weber's Der Freischützin the Oper Köln.
Mistrus Media
