Bio & Contact

Aaron David Kovalchik is a cinematographer who grew up in the woods of New England. He was inspired to pick up a camera by his irascible grandpa, Vincent, who was a photographer for National Geographic. Aaron studied filmmaking at Brown, RISD, and NYU, and holds an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown, where he taught creative writing. He has also taught filmmaking at Northwestern, and has worked as a writer/director, producer, and editor.

Primarily working on narrative features/shorts and favoring transgressive projects by historically marginalized writer/directors, he fosters an on-set environment that allows directors, actors, and the crew a safe space to push their boundaries. His work has shown at festivals such as Rotterdam, Sundance, New York, Tribeca, SXSW, Locarno, BAFICI, AFI, Outfest, BFI Flare, Brooklyn, Slamdance, and Seattle as well as museums/galleries such as The New Museum, The Hammer Museum, and the Taipei Biennial.

Feature credits include Vicky Wight’s The Lost Husband for Netflix, Quinn Shephard’s Blame which won best actress at Tribeca, Natalia Leite’s MFA, Kitao Sakurai’s Aardvark which won special mention at Locarno, Matthew Lessner’s Automatic at Sea, Vincent Gagliostro’s After Louie, Laura E. Davis’s Inheritance, and Lawrence Michael Levine’s Gabi on the Roof in July. Notable shorts include Myna Joseph’s Fit Model, Khary Saeed Jones’s Hug, and Chris Teague’s Monkeywrench.

Aaron has been the director of photography on all six seasons of the “unpredictable, hilarious, and deranged” Eric Andre Show for Adult Swim.

Other cinematography credits include fictionalized scenes for Frédéric Tcheng’s documentary Halston which premiered at Sundance, narrative scenes for Tom Kalin’s episode of Pride for FX, and several video art pieces for artist Nathaniel Mellors. Aaron is currently working on Khary Saeed Jones’s narrative/documentary hybrid feature Night Fight, and Myna Joseph’s feature Fit Model.

Commercial clients include Coca-Cola, Vans, Blue Apron, Microsoft, Vox, DevaCurl, and Axe. He has been based in Chicago since 2020, with deep roots in New York and Los Angeles.