The Blue Pelican Wins Another International Award – A Triumph in Stuttgart for METU Lecturer László Csáki’s Film

The animated documentary The Blue Pelican received another prestigious international accolade on Saturday evening, winning the Best Feature Film Award at the 32nd Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film (ITFS), Germany’s leading animation event.

The film was supported by the National Film Institute of Hungary, and was directed by László Csáki, a lecturer in Animation at Budapest Metropolitan University, affiliated with the Institute of Fine Arts and Theory.

The jury of the festival shared the following statement on their decision:

“This film – masterfully combining the tools of animation and documentary – revealed Hungary to us not only through a personal lens, but also within a broader social and historical context. The experience was energetic and immediate. Distinctive and compelling characters led us through the story, enchanting us while making us accomplices in their quest for freedom. All of this, wrapped in a vibrant soundscape and visual world, made the cinematic experience both entertaining and unforgettable,”

Based on real events, The Blue Pelican is a nostalgic and humorous story about three close friends who, in the 1990s, used blue carbon paper to forge international train tickets – in their own unique quest for freedom.

The film has already attracted over 26,000 viewers in Hungarian cinemas and continues to garner major awards at international festivals around the world.