Arvo Iho

Born

1949-06-21

Birthplace

Rakvere, Viru County, Estonian SSR, USSR [now Lääne-Viru County, Estonia]

Biography

Arvo Iho (born June 21, 1949) is an Estonian film director, cinematographer, actor and photographer, who has worked in the areas of documentary and drama. Born in Rakvere, Iho worked as a photographer and assistant for Tallinnfilm before studying cinematography at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography. Iho acted as assistant director to Andrei Tarkovsky on the 1979 film Stalker. He went on to work as a cameraman for Tallinnfilm in the 1980s. In 1985, Iho co-directed the feature film Games for School–Age Children with Leida Laius, also acting as director of cinematography, and in 1987 made his solo directorial debut with The Birdwatcher, about the relationship between a poacher and an ornithologist. He followed this with Only for the Insane (1990). In 2001 he made The Heart of the Bear, based on the Nikolai Baturin novel, and in 2006 made Gooseberries. As a photographer, Iho has exhibited nationally and internationally. As of 2017, Iho was a professor at Tallinn University's Baltic Film and Media School.