Priit Pärn to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at Frederikstad Animation Festival
I am delighted to see that Priit Parn will receive a Life Time Achievement Award at this year's Fredrikstad Animation Festival. He is a worthy winner with a marvelous body of films.
It is also a wonderful festival where I had the privilege to be on the selection committee. It is a festival well worth attending.
GUEST OF HONOR - PRIIT PÄRN
At this year's Fredrikstad Animation Festival, the legendary Estonian filmmaker Priit Pärn will be the festival’s guest of honor and awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award. The festival aims to highlight and showcase the filmmaker's career spanning over 50 years through an extensive program dedicated to Pärn. Priit Pärn is celebrated for his immense creative contributions and as an important international voice within the Nordic-Baltic animation community. The festival also wishes to recognize his role in educating new filmmakers and animators, highlighting his lifelong commitment to the Nordic-Baltic animation scene.
Priit Pärn began his career as a visual concept designer for the legendary animator and filmmaker Rein Raamat in 1974 and became affiliated with the Joonisfilm studio in the 1970s. Active as a caricaturist and illustrator since the late1960s, Pärn became a prominent figure in the Estonian film industry in the 1970s and has played a crucial role in shaping the young country’s artistic identity from the 1990s onward. Some of his most important films include Triangle (1984), Breakfast on the Grass (1987), Hotel E (1992), and Night of the Carrots (1998). His films are known for their dark humor, playful surrealism, and unique graphic style.
Priit Pärn enjoys high respect in the international film and animation communities and has found great success with his films at festivals worldwide. He is also a respected mentor and educator, teaching at art academies in Finland and Estonia, where he has influenced an entire generation of Northern European animation filmmakers. Through his work establishing animation programs at the Estonian Academy of Arts and at Turku in Finland, where he served as artistic director, films supervised by Pärn have won over 140 awards globally. He has also taught at film schools in 15 countries including Finland, Norway, Japan, Turkey, France, Canada, Australia, and the USA.
With a filmography that spans from the totalitarian Soviet era to a free and independent Estonia, Priit Pärn has directed, written, and served as artistic director for 18 animated films and held over 50 solo exhibitions worldwide. Pärn has received nine lifetime achievement awards, including honors from ASIFA, IFF Etiuda&Anima (Poland), Fredrikstad Animation Festival (Norway), IAFF Zagreb Animafest (Croatia), the Luna de Valencia Award from Valencia IFF Cinema Jove (Spain), and the Dragon of Dragons Award from Krakow IFF (Poland), along with Estonia’s national lifetime achievement award and others. Notably, Pärn was the first winner of the Grand Prix at the festival’s Nordic-Baltic competition in 1996 and repeated this feat in 2014 with the film Pilots on the Way Home, co-directed with Olga Pärn.
As part of the opening of the Fredrikstad Animation Festival, on 24 October his latest film Luna Rossa, co-directed with Olga Pärn, will be the opening feature. Additionally, he will give a talk on 26 Saturday and have an exhibition featuring prints of works by Olga and Priit Pärn on display in the foyer of the Fredrikstad cinema throughout the festival 24 - 27 October.
Buy your industry pass (animationfestival.no/tickets) today and attend all of the events featuring Priit Pärn.
