Elen Lotman is a cinematographer who has shot numerous feature films, shorts and documentaries. For various film projects she has travelled to Japan, Tibet, China, Thailand, India, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Lapland and the Russian Arctic. Her films have won awards and have been shown in competition programs of A-class film festivals like Camerimage, IDFA, Tampere Film Festival, Black Nights Film Festival, Moscow International Film Festival etc. Most recently, her full-length documentary ‘Dear Mother’ was nominated for Best Cinematography at the ReelHeart Filmfestival in Toronto and won the Best Feature Documentary in 2020. Full-length fiction ‘Good Bye Soviet Union’ was nominated for Camerimage Golder Frog in the Directors’ Debuts Competition and won the Black Nights Film Festival audience award in 2021. Her feature film screenplay ‘Container’ made it to the quarterfinalist at the American Film Academy Nicholl screenwriting competition 2021 and her virtual exhibitions filmed for Tallinn Art Hall were chosen among world’s 10 best virtual exhibitions of 2020 by both New York Times and Wallpaper Magazine.
Elen Lotman is the Associate Professor of Film Arts at Baltic Film, Media and Arts School (BFM) of Tallinn University and curates the artistic research branch in BFM PhD studies. Elen was elected co-President of the European Federation of Cinematographers (IMAGO) after serving as IMAGO Board Member and also Diversity and Inclusion Committee co-chair. She defended her PhD thesis titled “Experiential Heuristics in Fiction Film Cinematography” with laudatur in 2021.