I am embarrassed! I have been repeating, “I don’t understand Estonian animation,” for several years now. An old friend has reminded me that I once said after a screening of international animation around a dozen years ago that the Estonian film was hilariously funny; the only one on the program that was not ponderously pretentious.
Yes, I did. The film is “Tagasi Euroopasse” (“Back to Europe”), a 38 minute stop-motion featurette directed by Riho Unt in 1997; a commercial production from Nukufilm (Puppet Film) in Talinn rather than an individual animator’s “fine art” film. The stop-motion was of putty(?) in cloth bags; unusual but effective.
Here is one film festival’s summary: “A parody of the classic adventure film genre. Farmer Samuel, has just become free from the Soviet Union and is in no hurry to join the European Union. Rather, he forces Europe to reckon with him – raising adventures and dangerous situations.” It’s set just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both Russia and the European Union (shown as American-dominated) are wooing newly-independent Estonia. While the politicians in Talinn are trying to figure out the best deal for themselves, a grumpy old farmer in the countryside argues in his local pub, “To hell with the Americans and the Russians! Estonia for the Estonians!”, and stirs up a popular following.
Unfortunately, it’s not available on the Internet, but here are two film festival summaries, a still of farmer Samuel Plunkham and his omnipresent pig, and some information in English about the Nukufilm studio. “Tagasi Euroopasse” is apparently Unt’s second film starring Farmer Samuel; the first was “Cabbage Head” in 1993.
I have not seen much Estonian commercial stop-motion animation, "made for real people instead of animation snobs".
I am embarrassed! I have been repeating, “I don’t understand Estonian animation,” for several years now. An old friend has reminded me that I once said after a screening of international animation around a dozen years ago that the Estonian film was hilariously funny; the only one on the program that was not ponderously pretentious.
Yes, I did. The film is “Tagasi Euroopasse” (“Back to Europe”), a 38 minute stop-motion featurette directed by Riho Unt in 1997; a commercial production from Nukufilm (Puppet Film) in Talinn rather than an individual animator’s “fine art” film. The stop-motion was of putty(?) in cloth bags; unusual but effective.
Here is one film festival’s summary: “A parody of the classic adventure film genre. Farmer Samuel, has just become free from the Soviet Union and is in no hurry to join the European Union. Rather, he forces Europe to reckon with him – raising adventures and dangerous situations.” It’s set just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both Russia and the European Union (shown as American-dominated) are wooing newly-independent Estonia. While the politicians in Talinn are trying to figure out the best deal for themselves, a grumpy old farmer in the countryside argues in his local pub, “To hell with the Americans and the Russians! Estonia for the Estonians!”, and stirs up a popular following.
Unfortunately, it’s not available on the Internet, but here are two film festival summaries, a still of farmer Samuel Plunkham and his omnipresent pig, and some information in English about the Nukufilm studio. “Tagasi Euroopasse” is apparently Unt’s second film starring Farmer Samuel; the first was “Cabbage Head” in 1993.
I have not seen much Estonian commercial stop-motion animation, "made for real people instead of animation snobs".
http://www.nukufilm.ee/index.php?menyy=3&juttq=26&menyyq=sevencat&lisaks=synopsi...
http://www.filmfestamiens.org/?Tagasi-Euroopasse&lang=en
http://www.estonica.org/et/Kultuur/Film/Animafilm/Tagasi_Euroopasse/?max
http://www.nukufilm.ee/index.php?keel=eng
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.11/2.11pages/2.11jokinennuku.html
Fred Patten