11/05/2026 - Tõnis Pill’s feature debut is a hard-hitting coming-of-age tale set in an Estonian town and revolving around bullying, dysfunctional families and “monsters”, with unexpected moments of poetry

A disclaimer at the beginning of the film delivers a warning: this work contains scenes depicting children smoking, drinking alcohol and engaging in violence, which may upset some viewers. And it’s true that a lot of what we see in Frank, by Estonian director Tõnis Pill, is uncomfortable viewing. Presented in competition in the 10th Riviera International Film Festival (following its official premiere in Tallinn’s Black Nights Festival back in November) and earning young Derek Leheste the Best Actor trophy at the Ligurian festival, this rich and painful coming-of-age tale set in the Estonian provinces of the early noughties sees the Tallinn-born director - who graduated from the Baltic Film and Media School (BFM) – offering up his first feature film after making various shorts and working as first assistant director on the Estonian box office champion Truth and Justice, among other works. And this solid feature film debut certainly raises our hopes for his future works.

The film’s first sequence features a big, clumsy lad, shot from behind, positioning bottle caps on railway tracks and waiting for the train to go by to see what it does to them. At the same time, a small 13-year-old boy called Paul (Derek Leheste), who has a violent father and a long-suffering mother, arrives in the town to stay with his uncle for a few days, waiting for the storm to blow over after the umpteenth episode of domestic violence. Paul meets the boy with the bottle tops almost immediately, and it’s a shock: the latter has severe mental and physical disabilities, and when Paul sees his seriously disfigured face, he runs away. Later, Paul crosses paths with a group of local boys and the bullying begins there and then. But Paul’s thick skinned and he knows how to earn respect. He’s subsequently welcomed into the gang led by Jasper (Tõru Kannimäe), whose favourite pastime is throwing stones at the boy with disabilities, who’s called Frank (played by Oskar Seeman). To gain acceptance, Paul will also have to show Frank no mercy, despite the secret friendship unfolding between the pair. And the rivalry that eventually takes root between Paul and Jasper leads to increasing escalation in this violence.

Tõnis Pill paints a realist and uncompromising picture of the poverty and deprivation of the Estonian provinces in the early noughties, where life is hard and youngsters are forced to navigate violent contexts without a map. The director has direct experience of this, and Frank’s character is also based on a real-life man from his native city. “I don’t just want to talk about how wrong bullying is”, Pill specified, “I want to show and explain why someone becomes a bully and how they can get back on the right track”. Deep down, Paul and Jasper are very similar: they both have difficult family histories and no-one to listen to them; they’re both victims first and foremost, rather than just perpetrators. But Frank has someone who cares for him with love and understanding, and he knows how to pass on this love, despite everyone laughing at him and calling him “a joke of nature”. This youth-focused drama asks us who the real “monsters” are, in a context where everyone seems to do the wrong thing, the adults in particular. But, ultimately, a little humanity, lyricism, sensitivity and redemption finds its way in, amidst all the darkness.

Frank is an Estonian production headed up by Allfilm in co-production with Tallifornia and High Voltage. World sales are entrusted to Toronto-based Syndicado Film Sales.

(Translated from Italian)