Riga, March 11, LETA. Askolds Saulītis, a director and cameraman who has repeatedly won the national cinema award “Lielais Kristaps”, passed away, and LETA was informed at the National Cinema Center.
Saulītis was born on June 5, 1966 in Liepāja, studied at Liepāja Secondary School No. 5, Liepāja Secondary School of Applied Arts, Department of Pedagogy. In 1987 he decided to work in a Riga film studio, went to Riga and became an assistant worker in Aivars Freimanis’ 1989 feature film “Life”, he was an administrator in Arvīds Krieva’s 1990 feature film “Ieva’s Paradise Garden”.
At the same time, as a film amateur, Saulītis has started making experimental feature films. One of them – “XXX” in 1989 – received the “Grand Prix” at the Baltic Independent Film Festival, but the 1991 film “Opera” was awarded at the Gdańsk Film Festival in Poland.
In 1990, Saulītis started working as an assistant director, director and cameraman in the film studio “Kaupo”, making commercials. In 1993, together with the cameraman Uldis Jancis, he made his first film on 35 millimeter tape – a documentary about Riga’s communal apartments “Who Lives in the Communal Area”. In the 1990s, he worked as a director and cameraman on various Latvian televisions, and in the studio “Kaupo” he also made a documentary about the artist Aija Zariņa.
He has also worked in the film studio “FORMA”, making the 1999 documentary “Red and Brown” and the short story “Tristan and Izolde” in the 1999 Latvian-Estonian co-production of “Three Stories about…”. Saulitis has also worked in the film studio “Rija”, shooting the 1999 animated film “Clara & Rubinstein”.
In 1996 he started his studies at the Latvian Academy of Culture and in 2000 he obtained a bachelor’s degree in television directing, after his studies he also supplemented the Baltic Media Center international film co-production courses – Bornholm, Denmark in 2000, New York University professor Boris Frumin’s lecture courses in Riga from 2002 to 2003 and in 2005. In 2002 he worked on the jury of the international documentary film festival “Cinarchea” in Germany.
Founded the film studio “Subjektiv Filma” in 2000, the first documentary filmed in the studio was “Source of Youth” in 2001, and it brought Saulitis the second prize of the National Film Festival “Lielais Kristaps” as the best documentary film director – the first was awarded the year previously, about the movie “Red and Brown.”
At two national festivals, Saulītis’ films have received the Audience Award – in 1998 “Abduction of Europe” and in 2003 “Keep smiling!”. This film, dedicated to the memory of soldiers who fell in the territory of Latvia, received five nominations and an award for the best screenplay at the 2003 festival, and was later nominated for the “Nika” award of the Russian Film Academy. Saulītis’ next documentary “Festive Anatomy” at the 2005 National Film Festival also received five nominations and was awarded for the best editing.
In 2008, Saulītis completed work on the documentary film “Debt to Afghanistan”, on March 5, 2009, the Estonian director Arbo Tammiksārs’ film “Fricks and Blondes”, for which Saulītis was the Latvian producer, premiered in Riga. The film tells the story of Baltic actors who played Nazis in Soviet-era films. In the same year, the film “Bermontia” directed by Saulītis himself was completed, which explores a difficult period in the history of Latvia with the help of extensive archival materials and productions. The studio “Subjektiv Filma” has also made a documentary film “Out of the Playground” about former and current basketball stars with state support, its television premiere took place in the beginning of 2015.
In 2011, Saulītis founded the association “Terra Europa”, which has made several documentaries on Latvian history, confirming the author ‘s deep interest and erudition in historical issues – 2013 “Awakening Anthology”, 2014 “Baltic Freedom Road”, 2018. of “Songwriting”. Saulītis was included in the film program “Latvian Films for the Centenary of Latvia” with the 2017 documentary film “Eight Stars”, which is dedicated to a special phenomenon in the history of Latvia – Latvian riflemen.
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