Feb 28, 2024

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, three young Hungarians begin forging European train tickets.

The Hungarian documentary Pelikan Blue debuted at last year's Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival to positive reviews from European critics and festival attendees, with only mostly positive reviews on the Letterboxd page, and Cineuropa described it as "the type of film that leaves a permanent smile on the viewer's face."

The film will be released on April 4 by local distributor Juno11 Distribution after a preview screening in Hungary on February 28. International distribution has not yet been set. However, this fascinating under-the-radar film deserves wider recognition and to be seen by international audiences, whether through a limited theatrical release or distribution on streaming platforms.

"Pelican Blue" is produced by Hungary's Umbrella Entertainment and Cinemon Entertainment ("The Four Souls of Coyote"), independent visual artist, animator and director known for his distinctive blackboard drawing style. Directed by László Csáky, the film won the Best Documentary Award at the Hungarian Film Week in 2010 for the 27-minute short "Bádogváros."

The film, his feature debut, is set in 1990s Hungary against the backdrop of the post-Iron Curtain era, when travel to Western Europe became possible, albeit prohibitively expensive. Counterfeit train tickets became fashionable in order to cover the cost of traveling abroad. The film focuses on three young men who were involved in the counterfeiting scene and facilitated the crossing of Europe for a generation of Hungarians.

The story of Pelican Blue is more than a decade old and began as a cartoon on the wall of the Jurányi Gallery in Budapest. An early version of the story, based on a true story, was supported by the Incubator Program of the National Film Institute, which helps young filmmakers make their first feature films.

Director Cha-ki narrowed the film's narrative through an extensive development period in which he interviewed people about how their lives had been affected by the fake international airline tickets made with Pelican blue carbon ink. Many of the film's characters are based on real people, but their voices are played by Hungarian actors.

In an interview with Cartoon Brew, Csaky explained why animation is an appealing format for telling a documentary story and why "Pelican Blue" includes occasional live-action frames:

Animation is abstract. It is an opportunity and a tool to show reality. However, only live-action recordings can accurately reproduce the reality we see and know. These scenes reinforce the documentary nature of the animated film. These scenes are windows into reality, balancing the animated and the documentary.

According to Chaki, the production of a documentary relies heavily on historical assets and pre-recorded interviews, but much of the development and production process works the same way as a fictional feature film.

The storyboarding process is no different when directing an animated documentary film. Image cropping and point of view are designed in the same way. Even in the case of a documentary, edited dialogue and interviews must be prepared in advance, and the picture in the storyboard is prepared to match this cut soundtrack.

Although the film is heavily influenced by the aesthetics and anecdotes of the 1990s, Chaki and his team did not use archival film when animating the film. Instead, they filmed the scenes themselves and worked from that footage.

Since they shot live action scenes for the animation, they did not use archival footage. We used a super 8mm camera and recorded the scenes using old technology on film material, so the film looks exactly like it was made in the 1990s. We are very fortunate that this old technology is still available and that Kodak produces the film material for it. These live action shots are small windows into reality within the animation. In these scenes, actual objects and equipment from the time period appear. This reinforces the documentary effect of the film.