- In 1991, he produced Cilveka berns. The film was selected as the Latvian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 65th Academy Awards.
- He was also 'Inspector of the Theater Department of the Arts Administration' (1945-46).
- In 1980, his film 'Saruna ar karalieni' received the Latvian National Film Festival Prize for best documentary.
- With the premiere of the restored version of the feature film Ceplis at the Splendid Palace cinema in May 2017, director Rolandas Kalninsss 95th anniversary was solemnly celebrated, and a year later his feature film Four White Shirts was selected by the Cannes Festival as the best in world cinema history for the Cannes Classics program.
- He won Best Screenplay Award at the Chisinau Film Festival (1967) for his film "I Remember Everything, Richard".
- Following World War II, he started working as a director at the Riga Film Studio, instantly from an assistant director to a second director.
- His films I Remember Everything, Richard and Four White Shirts were pulled from cinemas as they were declared undesirable.
- He made his feature film directorial debut with the film Ilze (1959), co-directed the film Vetra (1960), and shot the television short film Pazeme (1963).
- In 2005 he received an Award for Life Contribution.
- He was born in Vecslabada, Istra Parish, Latvia to a post worker family.
- From 1937 to 1940, he studied at the Riga State Gymnasium No.1.
- From 1947 he worked at the Riga Film Studio, learned the profession of a film director through practical work - first he was an assistant director in the first Soviet Latvian feature film Majup ar uzvaru (1947), then he worked for the directors Julija Raizman, Pavel Armand and Leonid Leimana.
- He studied at the 1st Riga secondary school (1937-40), worked in the port, delivered bread, was a delivery boy at the newspaper Jaunakas Zinas and Armijas ekonomikaja (later a department store, now Galerija Centrs ), and a freelance sports journalist at the newspapers Padomju Latvija and Cina - because he himself did a lot of athletics and basketball - .
- He was a Latvian film director, screenwriter, and producer.
- His film Seaside Climate (1974) was banned already during the production process, and only 870 m (40 minutes) of working material has survived (restored in 2017).
- The movie "Four White Shirts" (1967, restored in 2017) was also forced to adopt the title 'Breathe deeply... ' during the Soviet era and became available to a wider audience only in 1986. Its central theme was the methodical destruction of a unique creative personality.
- A convincing image of Riga of the 1930s was created with laconic means in the film "Akmenainais cels" (1983, restored in 2019).
- In the film Ceplis (1972, restored 2017), Rolands Kalnins masterfully combined the elements of farce, irony and psychological drama.
- In his movie "Karalienes bruspinieks" (1970), dedicated to the problems of sports life, he merged documentary with staging.
- Due to ideological motives, several of Kalnins's works are partially isolated from the film process. The film" I remember everything, Ricard!" (1966), which tells the story of the fate of Latvian legionnaires in the Second World War, was re-edited due to censorship interference, and only shown 20 years later under the title given by the author, 'Akmens und Skembas' (restored in 2020).
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