Hungarian animation on display tonight

Friday marks the screening of the second film in the IU Hungarian Cultural Association's Film Series.\nThe HCA will show the animated feature "Fehérlófia" ("Son of the White Mare") at 6 p.m. in Swain Hall East 140. \nThe film, directed by Jankovics Marcell, is the first major animated cartoon from Hungary, produced in 1982, according to Imdb.com. \nAgnes Fulemile, the Hungarian Chair for the Central Asian Studies Department in the College of Arts and Sciences, said this story incorporates themes from the history of the Hungarian people.\nShe said the film, which features a horse on a nomadic journey through magical lands, parallels the nomadic life of the Hungarians before they settled down. \nThe main character travels to the underworld and rises with the help of a griffin, according to Fulemile. \n"It is quite a complex folk tale," she said.\nLike Disney films and Japanese anime, Hungarian animation has quite a distinct style, Fulemile said.\n"The pictorial scheme is something very unique," she said. \nMarcell's film was supported by a lot of research in ethnography and Hungarian cultural history, Hungarian painter Gyorgy Szemadam said in an issue of "Hungarian Heritage," a yearly magazine published by the European Folklore Institute.\nEach motif in "Fehérlófia" carries symbolic meaning and presents viewpoints that all connect at a shared core. These elements are typical of ancient, mythical language, said Szemadam in the article. \n"The heroic nature of Jankovics's venture is to be seen in the fact that he managed to introduce an entirely new facet to animated filmmaking, based on the traditions of printed cartoons and caricatures," said Szemadam. "We could probably even say that, thanks to Marcell Jankovics, a new and so far unknown tone emerged in Hungarian animated filmmaking." \nThe films in the Hungarian Film Series were discussed and chosen during the HCA's coffee hours over the past semester. The coffee hour is from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursdays at the Indiana Memorial Union Starbucks.