Priit Pärn

Priit Pärn

Directing

Biography

Priit Pärn (born August 26, 1946 in Tallinn) is an Estonian cartoonist and animation director whose films have enjoyed success among critics as well as the public at various film festivals. Pärn formerly worked as a plant ecologist; his career in animation began when he accepted Rein Raamat's proposal to make a design for Kilplased (1974). After a brief apprenticeship in Joonisfilm, he directed his first film Is the Earth Round? in 1977. Pärn's most important films are considered to be Triangle (1982), Breakfast on the Grass (1987), Hotel E (1992), 1895 (co-directed by Janno Põldma, 1995) and Night of the Carrots (1998). Pärn's style is characterized by black humour, playful surrealism and a unique graphic style. His somewhat crude style marked the departure from both Rein Raamat's overtly serious and moralizing films as well as the Disneyesque style propagated by the directors of Soyuzmultfilm. In his footsteps (and occasionally copying his style to a large degree) have followed numerous new generation Estonian film makers, most notably Ülo Pikkov and Priit Tender. Influences of Pärn's graphical style can also be seen in such commercial animated series as Rugrats and AAAHH!!! Real Monsters! directed by Igor Kovalyov. In 2002 Pärn was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Animated Film Association, and he received Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb in 2008. Divers in the Rain (2010), co-directed with his wife Olga Pärn, became the most successful Estonian animated film of all time with its 18th award at KROK International Animated Film Festival in Ukraine. Pärn had taught animation at the Arts Academy of the Turku University of Applied Sciences in Turku, Finland since 1994 and now he is teaching at Estonian Academy of Arts.

Filmography Movies

Acting

Priit Pärn in Tallinn movie poster

Priit Pärn in Tallinn

Documentary about the work of the Estonian cartoonist and animation director Priit Pärn

Login to unlock library

Priit Pärn in Tallinn

The Last Relic movie poster

The Last Relic

A medieval love story with lots of adventures. The times are troubled - there's a revolt of peasants going on. To secure its safety a monastery chases for a relics of a holy Brigitte. A nobleman promises to get it if he gets beautiful Agnes as a reward. But she fells in love with a handsome adventurer. The monastery has to act shrewd now and play double game.

Login to unlock library

Arabella, the Pirate's Daughter movie poster

Arabella, the Pirate's Daughter

Arabella is a daughter of the world's most terrifying pirate captain. She loves her father but also dreams about a life of a usual girl. One day a weird stranger is saved from the sea who will be the only friend of Arabella. At the same time a rival pirate called Raudpats plans to kidnap the girl. Will she be safe and can she ever live a normal life?

Login to unlock library

Arabella, the Pirate's Daughter

PärnographyMOVIE

Pärnography

This inventive documentary about famed Estonian animator Priit Parn is an involving look at his socialist, absurd, sometimes grotesque art in the eyes of Parn himself, his colleagues, and his fans and suggests that Estonia owes its independence to its animation rather than to material revolt and revolutionary singing

Login to unlock library

Gori the Caricaturist movie poster

Gori the Caricaturist

A richly animated documentary about the extremely popular caricaturist Gori, whose fate in Estonia at the beginning of the last century shows the balance between power and freedom like a mirror. In the Fellini-like world of Gori (1894-1944), farce and drama, mockery and big politics mix. There is no subject that Gori's pen will not mock until the winds turn and mouths are closed.

Login to unlock library

Gori the Caricaturist

A Night Without the PopeMOVIE

A Night Without the Pope

A portrait of Estonian animator Priit Parn.

Login to unlock library

A Night Without the Pope

Production

Hotel E movie poster

Hotel E

A confrontation of two worlds-- Two rooms, one of which is full of light and colors, the other a monotonous gray.

Login to unlock library

Background Designer

Hotel E movie poster

Hotel E

A confrontation of two worlds-- Two rooms, one of which is full of light and colors, the other a monotonous gray.

Login to unlock library

Hotel E movie poster

Hotel E

A confrontation of two worlds-- Two rooms, one of which is full of light and colors, the other a monotonous gray.

Login to unlock library

Time Out movie poster

Time Out

An anxious cat, immediately engaged in a flurry of stressful morning activities, works himself into a nervous breakdown.

Login to unlock library

Life Without Gabriella Ferri movie poster

Life Without Gabriella Ferri

A man and a woman lead a complicated love life, filled with erotic tension and despotic passion. Their son is an involuntary witness to all this, cooped up despondently in his room banging his head against the wall. To get away from the situation, he escapes into a virtual world. But when the man finds himself inopportunely stuck out on the balcony of the apartment, a burglar gets into the building. At the same time, in a neighbouring apartment, spies are getting ready to listen in on a group of scientists.

Login to unlock library

Life Without Gabriella Ferri

Life Without Gabriella Ferri movie poster

Life Without Gabriella Ferri

A man and a woman lead a complicated love life, filled with erotic tension and despotic passion. Their son is an involuntary witness to all this, cooped up despondently in his room banging his head against the wall. To get away from the situation, he escapes into a virtual world. But when the man finds himself inopportunely stuck out on the balcony of the apartment, a burglar gets into the building. At the same time, in a neighbouring apartment, spies are getting ready to listen in on a group of scientists.

Login to unlock library

Life Without Gabriella Ferri

Life Without Gabriella Ferri movie poster

Life Without Gabriella Ferri

A man and a woman lead a complicated love life, filled with erotic tension and despotic passion. Their son is an involuntary witness to all this, cooped up despondently in his room banging his head against the wall. To get away from the situation, he escapes into a virtual world. But when the man finds himself inopportunely stuck out on the balcony of the apartment, a burglar gets into the building. At the same time, in a neighbouring apartment, spies are getting ready to listen in on a group of scientists.

Login to unlock library

Life Without Gabriella Ferri

I Feel in the Back of My Head... movie poster

I Feel in the Back of My Head...

Poetic, experimental animated short directed by one of the greatest Estonian cartoonists Priit Pärn.

Login to unlock library

I Feel in the Back of My Head...

I Feel in the Back of My Head... movie poster

I Feel in the Back of My Head...

Poetic, experimental animated short directed by one of the greatest Estonian cartoonists Priit Pärn.

Login to unlock library

I Feel in the Back of My Head...

Time Out movie poster

Time Out

An anxious cat, immediately engaged in a flurry of stressful morning activities, works himself into a nervous breakdown.

Login to unlock library

Gallery

Priit Pärn portrait

Priit Pärn portrait