Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) awards Estonian-Canadian DOP Alar Kivilo with the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
The first of two Lifetime Achievement Awards, to be awarded during the award ceremony of the festival, goes to Alar Kivilo. Kivilo's work includes comedy The Blindside (2009) that brought an Academy Award to Sandra Bullock and WW II action drama Hart’s War, starring Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell, who won the Golden Goblet for best actor at Shanghai IFF.
Born in 1953 in Montreal into a family of Estonia emigres, Alar Kivilo began his cinematography career shooting documentaries and short films, including "Boys and Girls," which won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 1984. Kivilo next began shooting music videos, which eventually led to commercials and the formation of his own company, Propeller. For the next ten years, he directed and shot many Bessie, Clio and Cannes Award-winning commercials.
In recent years he has been directing and shooting the award-winning Newfoundland and Labrador tourism commercials: "Ancient Land" won a Gold Lion at Cannes for cinematography. In 1987, Kivilo lensed his first feature, "Da," followed by Sam Raimi’s "A Simple Plan" (1997).
He has since served as the director of photography on such films as "Frequency," "The Glass House," "Hart’s War" etc. For his work on the small screen, he received an American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Motion Picture/Mini-Series Television for the acclaimed HBO movie "Taking Chance," starring Kevin Bacon. Kivilo previously earned Emmy and ASC Award nominations for the HBO biopic "Gotti," and an ASC Award nomination for the miniseries "The Invaders."
Throughout his decades-spanning career, he has shot actors like Kevin Bacon, Bruce Willis, Cameron Diaz, Colin Farrell, Keanu Reeves, Bridget Fonda, Billy Bob Thornton, Christopher Plummer, John Cusack, Donald Sutherland, etc.
Kivilo is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The American Society of Cinematographers, Canadian Society of Cinematographers and Estonian Society of Cinematographers.
In 2012 Kivilo was a member of the Black Nights main competition programme jury.
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival’s director (Mrs) Tiina Lokk commented: ’I think it is quite difficult to not agree with the statement made by several Estonian journalists that Alar is internationally the most established filmmaker among Estonians. What I admire about him is the fact that he has not been keeping things to himself, sharing his experience and serving as an inspiration to young DOPs, proving that anything can be achieved, when talent and hard work meet!“
The festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award is an honorary accolade handed out each year to two people, a filmmaker or an audiovisual industry professional who has made a profound artistic or otherwise noteworthy impact on cinema at a regional and global level. Past winners include Andrei Konchalovsky, Liv Ulmann, Aki Kaurismäki, Arvo Pärt, István Szabó, Jörn Donner, Aki Kaurismäki, Friðrik Þór Friðriksson and many others.
Alar Kivilo will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the festival’s Award Ceremony on the 27th of November.
Boys and Girls (1984, dir Don McBrearty)
Simple Plan (1998, dir Sam Raimi) Frequency (2000, dir Gregory Hoblit)
Hart’s War (2002, dir Gregory Hoblit)
Aurora Borealis (2005, dir James Burke)
The Ice Harvest (2005, dir Harold Ramis)
The Lake House (2006, dir Alejandro Agresti)
The Lookout (2007, dir Scott Frank)
Year One (2009, dir Harold Ramis)
The Blindside (2009, dir John Lee Hancock)
Bad Teacher (2011, dir Jake Kasdan)
The Lucky One (2012, dir Scott Hicks)
Fallen (2016, dir Scott Hicks)
The Broken Hearts Gallery (2020, dir Natalie Krinsky)