With around 115,000 admissions, Tõnis Pill’s controversial feature FRÄNK redefines youth cinema in a country where such films are rare. During the SCHLINGEL Festival, where the film celebrated its international première, FRÄNK was the talk of the town. The director was invited to elaborate on the film’s production conditions and marketing strategy during the ECFA Exchange for professionals.
In Estonia, a country of just 1.3 million people, young audience cinema is rather scarce to be produced. Tõnis Pill: “We had around 10 titles being produced during the Soviet era, and probably another 10 since 2000.” That context makes FRÄNK’s box office results all the more extraordinary. The film has drawn more than 115,000 admissions, making it one of the 12 most successful domestic Estonian releases in the all-time ranking.
The filmmakers were unsure how audiences would react to the rough language, violent scenes, and nihilistic worldview. Never before have you seen so many children smoking cigarettes in a film, while a bag of glue is being passed around in the background. This made the target audience difficult to define. Tõnis Pill: “It took me several discussions with my producer before I realised that I was making a youth film. We were afraid that parents wouldn’t let their children watch it, because it’s too brutal. But what happened was that parents went to see it first, and then took their kids with them and talked about it.” Thus, the film became a catalyst for family discussions and peer-to-peer conversations.
Despite those concerns, FRÄNK quickly became a phenomenon, partly thanks to a marketing strategy built on a modest €50,000 budget, leaning heavily on social media to reach younger viewers. “I had weekly brainstorms with the producer, the distributor, and somebody working on the marketing side, trying to find ‘out-of-the-box’ methods to push the film forward. We focused on digital tools; Google and Facebook ads seemed the cheapest way to get close to the target audience.”
One of the most decisive factors turned out to be TikTok. Posting the film trailer there sparked a wave of user-generated content, as Estonian youngsters began remixing and quoting lines from the film. Tõnis Pill: “I was skeptical, but after we simply threw the trailer on TikTok, it kind of blew up in 24 hours. We started posting small snippets of the movie, and in the next three weeks, everyone started re-editing quotes from the movie and discussing how the story is similar to what they live through. That’s what got us the most exposure.”
On Estonia’s small market, FRÄNK demonstrates that even with limited resources, original young audience content can resonate widely. Tõnis Pill: “The film was recommended for 12+ audiences, but if parents want to take an 8-year-old to the cinema to watch it, they can. Many kids went even without parents, and I’m not sure if that was a good idea. I ended up in Q&A’s explaining why sniffing glue is an utterly bad idea.”
You’ll find an interview with Tõnis Pill in the next ECFA Journal.