Rimvydas Leipus was born September 9, 1960 in Salininkai, a small village near Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania.
His love for photography, he inherited from his father, a well-known handyman in the region.
After secondary school, he studied electricity engineering at the Kaunas University of Technology (1978-1979). He then served in the Soviet Army (1979-1981) and after that studied trade economy at the Vilnius University (1981-1984).
His film career was launched in 1984, when he started to work as camera assistant in the TV-Film department of the Lithuanian National TV and Radio. During his studies (1986-1992) at the VGIK (Russian State Institute of Cinematography) he shot his first short documentary as cinematographer: Atverti duris ateinančiam (1989, dir. Audrius Stonys).
Since then he has collaborated with directors Arūnas Matelis (TEN MINUTES BEFORE FLIGHT OF ICARUSŽ, 1990), Sharunas Bartas (_THE CORRIDOR, 1994; THE HOUSE read more
Rimvydas Leipus was born September 9, 1960 in Salininkai, a small village near Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania.
His love for photography, he inherited from his father, a well-known handyman in the region.
After secondary school, he studied electricity engineering at the Kaunas University of Technology (1978-1979). He then served in the Soviet Army (1979-1981) and after that studied trade economy at the Vilnius University (1981-1984).
His film career was launched in 1984, when he started to work as camera assistant in the TV-Film department of the Lithuanian National TV and Radio. During his studies (1986-1992) at the VGIK (Russian State Institute of Cinematography) he shot his first short documentary as cinematographer: Atverti duris ateinančiam (1989, dir. Audrius Stonys).
Since then he has collaborated with directors Arūnas Matelis (TEN MINUTES BEFORE FLIGHT OF ICARUSŽ, 1990), Sharunas Bartas (_THE CORRIDOR, 1994; THE HOUSE, 1997; FREEDOM_, 2000), Valdas Navasaitis (_THE COURTYARD, 1999) and many others.
He has shot numerous feature and documentary films, which have been screened at the Venice, Cannes and Berlin festivals. His work was awarded for Best Photography in the CEI and Baltic States Film Festival (Anapa, Russia) for THE COURTYARD (1999), Prize of the Lithuanian Filmmakers Union for FOURWlNGER, THE COURTYARD and 9 GATES CITY (1999), he has aslo been nominated for “GOLDEN FROG” award in CAMERIMAGE-97 for THE HOUSE.
His last film Khadak, directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, was awarded in the 63rd Venice Film Festival with the Luigi De Laurentiis Prize “Lion of the feature”. —rimvydasleipus.com
