Priit Pärn

Directing

Priit Pärn

Born 1946-08-26 · Tallinn, Harju County, Estonian SSR, USSR [now Estonia]

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.

Acting credits

No artwork available
6.0

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

Pärnography

2005

The Last Relic poster
6.4

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.

The Last Relic

1970

Arabella, the Pirate's Daughter poster
7.0

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?

Arabella, the Pirate's Daughter

1983

Priit Pärn in Tallinn poster
NR

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

Priit Pärn in Tallinn

2013

Gori the Caricaturist poster
NR

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.

Gori the Caricaturist

2023

No artwork available
NR

A portrait of Estonian animator Priit Parn.

A Night Without the Pope

2007

Behind the camera

Breakfast on the Grass poster
5.9

Several episodes, each focusing on a different figure. Towards the end they all come together to replicate the famous painting by Édouard Manet that provides the title.

Breakfast on the Grass

1987

Breakfast on the Grass poster
5.9

Several episodes, each focusing on a different figure. Towards the end they all come together to replicate the famous painting by Édouard Manet that provides the title.

Breakfast on the Grass

1987

Fly Mill poster
NR

The protagonist is a Miller living in a watermill. He bakes daily bread and raises ducklings whom he wishes one day to set free. But on the field next to his home, hunters go to shoot birds.

Fly Mill

2011

Time Out poster
5.9

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

Time Out

1985

Time Out poster
5.9

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

Time Out

1985

Hotel E poster
4.6

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

Hotel E

1992

Hotel E poster
4.6

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

Hotel E

1992

Noblesse Oblige poster
7.5

Balancing on the borders of the real and the unreal the film strives to express the monotony of this world, its illusory character, and emphasize the lack of spirituality in everyday routine.

Noblesse Oblige

1989

The Pigeon Lady poster
7.0

A fun and educational story about the nature of goodness. It's not just a natural and self-evident part of our lives, but a force that helps overcome many obstacles that come our way in life.

The Pigeon Lady

1983

Visions of Europe poster
5.3

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Visions of Europe

2004

Night of the Carrots poster
7.1

Diego the bicyclist waits to check into the PGI hotel, where each room's inhabitant seems more bizarre than the last, and the rabbits on the top floor have discovered the secret of voodoo, using electronics and carrots. Can the rare and unpredictable night of the carrots save everyone, or will their connections to the room's electrical sockets restrain them too much? Will Diego find love with an egg that speaks incessantly in German? Will the cellist, who is actually a room full of a gelatinous substance, affected in some way by buttons labeled K, G, and B, have dreams that explain everything? Or will the audience just leave scratching their heads? Not all questions get answered.

Night of the Carrots

1998

Night of the Carrots poster
7.1

Diego the bicyclist waits to check into the PGI hotel, where each room's inhabitant seems more bizarre than the last, and the rabbits on the top floor have discovered the secret of voodoo, using electronics and carrots. Can the rare and unpredictable night of the carrots save everyone, or will their connections to the room's electrical sockets restrain them too much? Will Diego find love with an egg that speaks incessantly in German? Will the cellist, who is actually a room full of a gelatinous substance, affected in some way by buttons labeled K, G, and B, have dreams that explain everything? Or will the audience just leave scratching their heads? Not all questions get answered.

Night of the Carrots

1998

Some Exercises in Preparation for Independent Life poster
4.7

A sometimes harsh, sometimes goofy look at the routines that give our lives form.

Some Exercises in Preparation for Independent Life

1981

Some Exercises in Preparation for Independent Life poster
4.7

A sometimes harsh, sometimes goofy look at the routines that give our lives form.

Some Exercises in Preparation for Independent Life

1981

Frank & Wendy poster
7.3

Two American secret agents - Frank and Wendy - are sent to the world's hotbed of danger, known as Estonia. Estonia is a silly place, perhaps even sillier than the agents themselves. Frank and Wendy, for whom saving the world is their daily work, achieve both mental and manual feats with the greatest of ease. It appears that nothing can prevent their ultimate victory, but go figure. The axis of evil does not wither and attacks the super-agents from where they can least expect it...

Frank & Wendy

2005

Karl and Marilyn poster
6.7

Karl is tired of the heavy burden of fame that oppresses him and he decides to liberate himself from it. He returns to life among so called ordinary people, after which he crosses paths with fame-seeking Marilyn. Ordinary Karl is the force that turns Marilyn into an idol of the masses. But not for long...

Karl and Marilyn

2003

Karl and Marilyn poster
6.7

Karl is tired of the heavy burden of fame that oppresses him and he decides to liberate himself from it. He returns to life among so called ordinary people, after which he crosses paths with fame-seeking Marilyn. Ordinary Karl is the force that turns Marilyn into an idol of the masses. But not for long...

Karl and Marilyn

2003

It Moves? It Moves! poster
NR

Stone Age. The caveman goes out hunting. Escaping from a wild animal, he throws a stone axe at it. Then he drags the animal's body back to his cave, where he plays a wooden flute. While the man was walking, a ball falls from the sky, and he gets the idea to build a machine in his head. At first it was just a cart. Time flies quickly, and the man finds himself in the 20th century, where he transforms the cart into a car and tests it.

It Moves? It Moves!

1977

Song of Songs poster
NR

A woman and a man in a vital fight - over an empty milk carton.

Song of Songs

2010

...And Plays Tricks poster
6.0

A tiny green bear (the Trickster) tries his best to impress a group of animals with his annoying tricks.

...And Plays Tricks

1978

...And Plays Tricks poster
6.0

A tiny green bear (the Trickster) tries his best to impress a group of animals with his annoying tricks.

...And Plays Tricks

1978

Fairytale About His Majesty poster
10.0

A satirical puppet film about the devastation alcohol causes to the human body.

Fairytale About His Majesty

1974

Is the Earth Round? poster
4.5

A boy sets out to prove the world is round by walking in one direction and ending up where he started.

Is the Earth Round?

1977

Is the Earth Round? poster
4.5

A boy sets out to prove the world is round by walking in one direction and ending up where he started.

Is the Earth Round?

1977