Pelikan Blue

"Those who can, will leave the country that forbids them to leave."

It all started fairly innocent ... All great "crime" stories like that, don't they? After the end of communism in 1989, Hungary steps into a new decade with great prospects and high hopes regarding the freedom of its people. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, Hungary's borders suddenly open up. Everyone is eager to travel to Western Europe, young people in particular. But the price of a train ticket is prohibitive. What good is freedom if you can't afford it?

Faced with this newfound but unaffordable liberty, three youngsters devise a masterplan: using household detergents they dissolve the Pelikan Blue ink on the train trickets (which were still handwritten), allowing them to make counterfeits to almost any destination. And off they go. A scheme of spying on ticket booths, researching procedures, studying timetables and stealing ticket covers helps an entire generation travel abroad affordably. But such freedom always comes at a price. Before long, the three young men are being eyed by the police.

Pelikan Blue, Hungary's very first animated documentary feature, originated in archive audio interviews with many of the people involved nostalgically reminiscing the time when Eastern Europe was finally freed from its cage. Juming between timelines and following the narrative codes of fiction filmmaking, director László Csáki's debut feature is an eclectic gangster comedy with great wit and an even greater sense of civil disobedience - or as one character puts it: "My mother told me that stealing from another man is a crime, but stealing from the state is glorious."