Priit Pärn

Who is Priit Pärn?

Priit Pärn 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. 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, Breakfast on the Grass, Hotel E, 1895 and Night of the Carrots.

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 have followed numerous new generation Estonian film makers, most notably Ülo Pikkov and Priit Tender.

Influences of Pärn's graphical style can be also be seen in such commercial animated series as Rugrats and AAAHH!!! Real Monsters! directed by Igor Kovalyov.