Viestur Kairish

Born

1971-01-30

Birthplace

Riga, Latvia

Biography

Viestur Kairish (born 30 January 1971) is a Latvian film, opera, and theatre director whose work has been recognized at festivals across Europe. He trained as a theatre and film director at the Latvian Academy of Culture, graduating in 1997. Kairish began his filmmaking career with the documentary The Train in 1998. His feature debut, Leaving by the Way (2002), earned Latvia's National Film Award for Best Feature, competed at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, and won the Best Debut prize at London's Raindance Film Festival, along with a FIPRESCI Award for Best Baltic Film. He went on to direct the historical drama Chronicles of Melanie (2015), a Latvian-Finnish co-production, and January (2022), which won the Lielais Kristaps award for best feature film. His documentary Pelican in the Desert screened in competition at the Visions du Réel festival in Nyon and received a Special Jury Prize at Vienna's Let's CEE Film Festival. His newest film Ulya (2026) has been screened at the Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard selection. Alongside his film work, Kairish has built a prominent career as an opera director. He made his opera debut with Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at the Latvian National Opera in 1999, winning the Latvian Great Music Award for Best Opera Production. He later staged the final three installments of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle at the same house, work that helped launch an international opera career taking him to Komische Oper Berlin, Oper Köln, and Staatstheater Darmstadt, with productions of works by Britten, Weber, and Verdi drawing praise from critics including the Financial Times. He is also a longtime director at Riga's New Riga Theatre, where several of his stage productions have toured major European festivals such as the Wiener Festwochen, the Festival d'Avignon, and the Bonner Biennale.