Growing up in Estonia, Kadri Koop didn’t dare to dream of a career in the arts. “My parents are entrepreneurs, and my family was very open, and put no pressures on me,” she recalls. “I felt like I could do things, but the idea that I could have a voice, or go to film school – I didn’t know how to jump-start this process. It seemed out of reach.”
Her family valued travel, so Koop decided to expose herself to a wide variety of cultures as a way of gaining experience. Over the course of a decade, she attended seven different school on three continents. “Once I eliminated all the subjects I didn’t want to study, I was left with film,” she says with a laugh. “I found I wanted to be hands-on and surrounded by other people.”
(Vantage Film / Hawk, 2022)
I have not seen a bad film at the 2022 Santa Barbara International Film Festival – and I have seen several thus far. I will say right now – A Place in The Field is exquisite! It is beautifully shot by Kadri Koop – full of symbolism and metaphors, spoken and unspoken.
(Hollywood Glee, 2022)
During the women filmmakers' seminar, the moderator, Claudia Puig, said 18% of the directors working on the 200 top-grossing films of 2021 were female. A number that women filmmakers said is far too low.
Kadri Koop was the cinematographer for "A Place In The Field". Her suggestion is simple, "Hire more women."
(KEYT.COM, 2022)
Every frame in this film is beautiful in its own way. Right at the start of the film, we are presented with a sunset against the silhouette of the remains of a building – a gorgeous shot. I half wanted to pause the film, from time to time, to be able to soak in the lavish views along this road trip. The background score is almost meditative, ideally complementing these landscapes. I am equally impressed by the color palette and the color grades in this film. While the entire movie basks in mellow sunlight, like a warm memory, the haunting memories of a war-infested front have been differentiated in a colder, much greyer palette, and a few scenes from the dawn, dusk, and night times are dipped in myriad shades of blue. I was, I daresay, reminded of one of my favorite Kiarostami films, The Taste of Cherry (1997), from time to time. Kudos to the cinematographer, Kadri Koop, for bringing alive the desert for the audience.
(High on Films, 2022)
When I was approached by Tête-à-Tête, a Los Angeles based creative-studio founded by filmmaker Austin Lynch and artist Case Simmons, to shoot Stella McCartney’s latest collaboration with Mylo, a Silicon Valley based startup that makes leather from mushrooms, I was intrigued to say the least. Added to the equation was Paris Jackson, who was going to model the first-ever mushroom leather outfit.
(Zeiss Lenspire, 2021)
I’m a cinematographer who works in the intersection of documentary and fiction. I enjoy sharing my time between the two different worlds as I’m a firm believer in the sense of ‘reality’ that raises in this subliminal space where non-fiction becomes fiction. I’m particularly excited to shoot fiction with the methods of documentary: non-professional actors, without permits at non-scouted locations, shooting on the go, shaping existing light instead of adding fixtures etc.
(Shoutout LA, 2020)
