Estonia, 2005, 35mm, colour, Dolby Surround, 75’, in Estonian language with English subtitles. Adult audience.
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...
“So what can I tell you about Frank and Wendy? I have to admit that the biggest job in this film is done by Priit Pärn, its his idea, his characters, and even his storyboard. My job was to coordinate the work of animators, edit the film and work with music, sound and actors. It gave great experience to work with a dialogue which I have not done before. The process of the work was quite chaotic we even did not have a complete story while we started to animate, so a bit of that chaos is also reflected in the film. Frank and Wendy was at first done like a TV serial, the idea of making it a feature film came later probably cause we could not sell it to any TV channel. To make the film in circumstances of total freedom was a great fun!”
Kaspar Jancis, one of the directors
“Taking the classic "super-agent-saving-the-world" genre, throwing in a strong undercurrent of east-meets-west subthemes, vivid colours, that outstanding and unique hand drown styling that only the Estonians can come up with and a few other bits that we need a "special doctor" to help us understand, Frank and Wendy will take your breath away.“
London International Animation Film Festival
“It may make no sense, but it’s totally consistent in the way it doesn’t make sense.”
Taylor Jessen, Animation World Magazine
Priit Pärn
Graduated from the Department of Biology of University of Tartu in 1970. Worked at the Botanical Garden of Tallinn as a plant ecologist from 1970 to 1976. Worked as an art director and animated film director at the Joonisfilm animated film department of Tallinnfilm Studio since 1976. Works at Eesti Joonisfilm Studio since 1994. Has been active as a caricaturist and illustrator since the end of the 1960's. He has done more and more work as a freelance graphic artist since the early 1980's. Pärn has had over 30 solo exhibitions over the past 12 years in various European countries and Canada. Pärn has also worked as a teacher over the past 10 years. He has taught at film schools in Finland, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Holland and England. Pärn is the artistic director of the animation department of the Turku School of Art and Media in Finland since 1994. Pärn has made 10 animated films of duration up to 30 minutes as well as a host of short films, commercials and so on.
Kaspar Jancis
He has been part of the creative core of several rock groups, written song lyrics, made arrangements and created tunes. He enrolled at the Tallinn Pedagogical University in 1996. He completed his first films at that school - the silent film Dr. Maisarve and the Matshalka Case (1996) and the cutout puppet film Flight of the Little White Helicopter (1996), which was screened at rock concerts and also on television. He transferred from the Pedagogical University to the Turku Arts and Media School in Finland in 1997 to study animation under the guidance of Priit Pärn. He made his debut film Romance (1999) in Turku, and it has participated in several international film festivals.
Ülo Pikkov
Graduated from the Turku School of Art and Media (Finland) in 1998. His caricatures, comics and illustrations have been published in the press.
Priit Tender
Graduated as an art teacher from the Tallinn Pedagogical University in 1995. His first job was at Eesti Joonisfilm Studio, where he worked as a co-artist on the film 1895 (1995) by Priit Pärn and Janno Põldma. The animated film Gravitation was his directorial debut in 1996.
