Erik Kjonaas

Erik Kjonaas is an American Cinematographer with Norwegian Ancestry, born on May 15th, 1985. His personal and artistic style has been characterized for his dark humor and sense of irony attached to a mysterious eclectic satirical tone which has been featured in hundreds of projects all over the world. In 2007 he graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a BFA in Film in May 2007 and due to random coincidences he began his career doing sound on set for numerous productions, despite having been involved in a massive car accident who left him with permanent hearing loss and a metal plate in his skull. Erik also specialized in VFX and has a interesting path as a writer. He moved to Los Angeles, California in 2012 for his Masters degree which he obtained in 2014 in Filmmaking with an emphasis in Cinematography at the New York Film Academy and studied as a Post Grad at the Global Cinematography Institute run by Yuri Neyman ASC and the late Vilmos Zsigmond ASC. Shortly after finishing his Master's he shot the feature film "El Freeman" for which he obtained a nomination as Best Cinematography in a feature film in the Madrid International Film Festival 2018, this film marked also the 7th collaboration between him and the director Antonio Chavez Trejo with whom he worked as well in the dystopian film "MIRA Protocol" (2017) for which he was also nominated for Best Cinematography at the Top Indie Film Awards in 2017; in 2015 he had two films premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, "Rocket Science" and "Bloody Luck". Writing has been one of the trades which has define him as an artist and besides co-writing the feature "El Freeman" he has written several scripts and he is working on his first book, "Letters to the Government and Other Biographical Fiction", a post modern anthology of political satire. He is also working on the very early stages of a new feature film, a stylistic homage to filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky and Robert Bresson whom he is greatly inspired by. Erik has worked with numerous famous artists and brands like the Coca-Cola company, Elit Vodka, Deluxe, Sony Interactive and Spike TV. In 2016 he worked on Space Command: Redemption with the director Marc Zicree (writer for "Start Trek: DS9" and producer of "Sliders") and in 2018 he shot the music video "No Me Arrepiento" with the Argentinean artist Soleil J, starring famous Puerto Rican actor Luis Guzman and produced by the Grammy winner musician Maffio.