Almost Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Hungarian Animated Film, And Weren't Afraid To Ask～Interview with Varga Zoltán (Part 1)

Zoltán Varga is currently a Ph.D. Student of Doctoral Program in Film, Media and Contemporary Culture at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary. His research areas are: popular film culture, genre theory, history of genres, animated film (theory and history). His earlier publications include essays based on animation related material – in Hungarian: about Tim Burton, basic concepts of animated film, connections between live-action film and animation, clay animation; in English: Wordless Worlds? Some Notes on the Verbality in Animated Films through the Use of Verbality in Péter Szoboszlay's Animated Films. In: Ágnes Petho (ed.): Words and Images on the Screen: Language, Literature, Moving Pictures. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. pp. 242-256.

What is the first Hungarian animation you've ever watched? And how was that?

It is hard to tell what was the very first Hungarian animation I watched. During my early childhood in the late 1980s, there were only two Hungarian television channels, and very fortunately most of the Hungarian animated series were on the programme in those years. So in this period, basically when I was in kindergarten, I had the chance to see some of the series that were made in the 1970s and in the 1980s – those decades are said to be the golden age of Hungarian animated series, and according to many, that period was the golden age of Hungarian animation in general. Probably I saw more, but I have memories about seeing episodes from the series titled Frakk, a macskák réme / Frakk, the Terror of Cats, A nagy ho-ho-horgász / The Grrreat Angler, Sebaj Tóbiás / Never Mind, Toby, and Magyar népmesék / Hungarian Folk Tales. Frakk is a very cute cut-out animated series directed mainly by András Cseh, and it is about a beagle and his relationship with the old couple who owns him and with their two mischievous cats. A nagy ho-ho-horgász is a cartoon series made by Attila Dargay about an unlucky but lovable fisherman who is always fooled by the fishes. Sebaj Tóbiás is a clay animation series directed by Ferenc Cakó, and its title character is a good-hearted fellow who always tries to help others, and as a clay figure he is capable of a wide range of shape-shifting. I will speak about Hungarian Folk Tales in more details later, at this point I only wish to mention that it is a cartoon series which does not have recurring heroes or continuous storylines but every episode is a separate story which stands on its own, and all of the stories came from the Hungarian folklore.

However, besides these series, I can definitely recall a very important early experience about Hungarian animation, one of the full-length animated films. A few weeks before I went to elementary school – that was exactly 30 years ago –, during summer time in 1990, I had the chance to see Macskafogó / Cat City several times on VHS tape (the international title is not an accurate translation, because the original title literally means ‘cat trap’). I was enchanted immediately, and I remember I found the singing purple cat lady in this scene especially charming (but who would not?). Macskafogó was directed by Béla Ternovszky and was written by József Nepp; this film was the peak of their long-term collaboration. It was very successful right after its premiere in 1986, and after that it had become a cult film in Hungary, some kind of a national treasure, almost everyone knows it and can quote from it (a few years ago it was even adapted as a stage musical). As a matter of fact, Macskafogó is a very unique production among Hungarian animated films. Its plot, which is built around the global conflict of the cats and mice, is elaborated as a hilarious spoof of the James Bond-franchise. Genre parody and especially mixing genres (Macskafogó contains elements not only from action and spy films but also uses motifs of disaster movies, musicals, gangster films and even vampire films) were not very common in Hungarian animation at all. In this regard Macskafogó almost seems as if it was from Western Europe or from the USA. But the other side of the coin is that the very Eastern-European humour of Ternovszky and mainly of Nepp (who was a key figure as a writer in Hungarian animation) made Macskafogó a genuinely Hungarian and/or Eastern-European production as well. Since my childhood Macskafogó has become one of those films I have seen the most times, and it is always a delight to watch it again.

What is the most important Hungarian animation in the Hungarian animation history in your opinion? And why?

It would be impossible to point at “the” single most important film in Hungarian animation history, partly because we have a very long and rich tradition of animated film making (the beginning leads back to the 1910s), and even more because the possible “nominees” would be different from different points of view. I mean, if we choose films based on the historical significance, the aesthetical values, the national and international reception and acclaim, we should handle different films, and there is one more basic aspect, namely the type of animation production. As far as the latter is concerned, there are essential Hungarian animations in the production type of short films, series and full-length works as well. Let me mention some of the most important Hungarian animated films based on the aforementioned aspects.

Perhaps without Gyula Macskássy’s A kiskakas gyémánt félkrajcárja / The Diamond Half Penny of the Little Rooster and especially without one of Macskássy’s masterpieces, Két bors ökröcske / Two Little Oxen, Hungarian animation film making would not have developed at all, or at least its path would have been entirely different. These films were made under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, during one of the darkest periods of the storm-beaten twentieth-century Hungarian history (in the first half of the 1950s), and they had a central role in establishing the animated film making in the Hungarian film industry. Két bors ökröcske also belongs to the best Hungarian animated short films ever made (although its almost half hour length is a kind of a transition between the short and the full-length animated films). Talking about Macskássy, he also grounded the individual short films, when he made A ceruza és a radír / The Pencil and the Rubber and Párbaj / Duel in 1960, collaborating with the caricaturist György Várnai. These animations were heavily influenced by the modernist style of UPA, and they were very well received in Karlovy Vary, and in Cannes, respectively. In the later years, from the 1960s to the 1980s, we also find particularly important short films, including A Nap és a Hold elrablása /The Kidnapping of the Sun and the Moon, made by Sándor Reisenbüchler; Sisyphus and Küzdők / The Fight, directed by Marcell Jankovics; Moto perpetuo, made by Béla Vajda; A légy / The Fly, directed by Ferenc Rofusz. These films are highly regarded internationally, and by their aesthetic characteristics they are unquestionably masterpieces. A Nap és a Hold elrablása was awarded in many places worldwide, and its surrealistic approach to the folklore helped to establish the visionary style of one of the most unique talents of Hungarian animation history. Sisyphus was an Academy Award nominee, while Küzdők won the Golden Palm at Cannes; the former one’s brilliant and beautiful use of lines offers an exceptional interpretation of the mythical hero, while the latter animation shows in an apparently more naturalistic style the circulation of creation and disintegration, with poignant effect. Moto perpetuo also won the Golden Palm at Cannes, and it is a comical yet mildly unnerving satire about the chaos and absurdity of the world. A légy was the very first Hungarian motion picture honoured with the Academy Award (in 1981); from start to finish it virtually places the viewer into the point-of-view of a fly, resulting in astonishing visual fluidity, while the plot, based on the contrast of freedom and captivity, has universal themes about running out of time, so eventually about life and death. The description of Hungarian animation history cannot be complete without these short films. Of course, we could mention very impressive short films from the recent years too, and we should definitely mention them later.

Considering the full-length animated feature films, there are also some that can be listed among the most important Hungarian animated films. Attila Dargay’s cartoons such as Lúdas Matyi / Matty the Gooseboy and Vuk / The Little Fox, belong to the most successful Hungarian films, and they were seen in cinemas by more than 2.000.000 viewers (it is roughly the fifth of the country’s population). Some kind of a cult was developed around Marcell Jankovics’s Fehérlófia / Son of the White Mare worldwide, as it was selected as one of the best animated films in 1984 in Los Angeles, and nowadays – thanks to its restoration – its recognition will be even wider (as some of its recent reviews has already confirmed this assumption). Yet, let us not forget about the animated series. During the decades of Communism, the comical series titled Gusztáv / Gustavus, launched by the trio of Attila Dargay, József Nepp, and Marcell Jankovics in the 1960s, was the most successful Hungarian animated series worldwide (it was sold to more than 70 countries), and it was extremely well-received at home. Nowadays Hungarian Folk Tales, the most important series made in Kecskemét, seems to be the most popular Hungarian animated series in the world. Its popularity has grown further since its episodes can be seen online; they were viewed more than 120.000.000 times. All of the 100 episodes can be found with English dub on the channel of Kecskemétfilm, called Hungarian Folk Tales. The series which was initiated by Ferenc Mikulás, the head of the studio established in Kecskemét, and was controlled by Marcell Jankovics as the main director, has an exceptional role in showing the Hungarian cultural legacy and our traditions to the whole world. Actually, just a few days ago (on 15th October) it was announced that the series had been selected into the collection of the so-called Hungarikums (for the explanation see this site). This honour undoubtedly shows that Hungarian Folk Tales is one of the most important Hungarian animations ever.

If you choose just one favorite Hungarian animation, what is this? And what is the reason? Is there a personal memory?

Just like answering the question about the most important Hungarian animation, to pick a personal favourite is also a very hard task. The more someone gets closer to the animated films, the harder it becomes to choose only one favourite. As I mentioned earlier, Macskafogó is among my all-time favourites, but many of Hungarian people would say the same. The most basic short films I also mentioned before, are also widely admired (for example, recently I had to meet a surgeon-dentist, and when I told him I do research on Hungarian animation, he mentioned that his favourite Hungarian animations are Sisyphus, A légy, and Gusztáv). So, let me pick a more personal favourite; however, it also has some devoted fans, including Marcell Jankovics, who ranks high the animated film in question. One of the artists of the studio in Kecskemét, called Pál Tóth (whose nickname is ‘Paja’) made a very peculiar series in the 1980s, titled Leo & Fred. It is about a lion and his tamer who live in a circus, but the episodes do not concentrate on the attractions, instead of them the plots focus on the everyday life of the main characters, which is sometimes rather uneventful. The contemplative and lyrical approach of the series reaches its high point in the final episode, titled Koncert / Concert, which I would consider as one of the most beautiful Hungarian motion pictures of all time, not just among animated films, but motion pictures in general. I would not like to spoiler it, everybody can check it (and it does not contain any dialogue), so I just wish to emphasize that its last 3 minutes are pure poetry. It is about getting old and abandoned, being lonely, even being lost, and yet there is still hope, or at least some kind of consolation. It is heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. I think this is a very rare quality in cartoons in general (or at least in cartoon series).

I want to ask you about the outstanding characteristics in Hungarian animation. In your essay "Look Behind the (Animated) Pictures. Notes on the Role of the Aesopic Language in Hungarian Animated Film", you mentioned 5 characteristics in Hungarian Animation. 1) Tales 2) Satirical comedies 3) Animated films based on different aspects of Hungary's past, such as folklore, literature and history 4) Animated films with sociographical interests and documentarist ambitions and 5) Aesopic language, the main theme of this essay. So, please explain to Japanese readers these 5 characteristics more detailedly?

I wrote that essay 6 years ago when I was doing research on the whole 100 years of Hungarian animation, and this text introduced my main assumptions considering the most recognizable characteristics of Hungarian animation. There is a somewhat unusual phenomenon considering our animated film making, namely we cannot highlight one specific tendency or characteristic which we should call as “the” first and foremost attribution of Hungarian animation. Of course, every animated film making practice offers variety to a certain degree, but in the most emblematic cases we can notice some features of a kind of mainstream. An obvious example would be the animated film making of the USA, where not surprisingly the dominant version of the animated film would be the Disney-style (like it or not), and every alternative to that can be interpreted as an effort to contrast its realm (including the Fleischer Brothers in the early 1930s, Tex Avery in the 1940s, UPA in the 1950s, or Ralph Bakshi at the beginning of the 1970s and so on). If we look at Hungarian animation, I would not say that there is one dominant way of making animated films and the others are its alternatives, because animated film directors were permitted – and to a certain point, encouraged – to develop their own style even during in the most centralised period of the industry (between the late 1950s and the late 1980s). Thus Hungarian animation became a very individualistic film art, and it cannot be associated with certain specificity, unlike for example the contemporary Czechoslovak animation which was clearly tied with the tradition of puppet animation (even if obviously there were made cartoons as well). On the other hand, this does not mean that Hungarian animation is so diverging that we could not point out some tendencies which condense several of the similar directorial approaches. In my essay, which you mentioned, I drafted a rather early proposal about these tendencies or characteristics; that is why their delineation is fairly short. Later I had the chance to reconsider them in a more subtle way, but the basics remained more or less the same.

The tendency which I called ‘tales’ in the essay, was reconsidered in my book as classical animation: it was definitely established by the short animated films based on tales made by Gyula Macskássy in the 1950s, and after he abandoned this approach at the beginning of the 1960s, Attila Dargay continued this trend, making the most successful works of that (such as the full-length film I mentioned earlier). This tendency was admittedly influenced by Disney, but it was also strongly attached to Hungarian traditions such as folklore and literature. I referred to the second tendency in the essay as ‘satirical animations’, and I had to handle it as a broader category. It is debatable whether an animation is satirical or not, so I had to choose a more reliable base, and that is why I introduced the category of caricatural (or caricaturistic) animated film, which clearly has identifiable visual attributes coming from caricatures. Its main profile is the comical, humorous approach, including the elements of the grotesque and the absurd. In drawn animation (or cartoon), its master was József Nepp as a director and screenwriter as well, and beside him the name of Béla Ternovszky and Béla Vajda should be mentioned here, together with the brilliant paint animated short films made by József Gémes. His masterpiece is jergy, which can hardly be omitted from the list of the most important Hungarian animations, in fact I should have mentioned it before. (I have to repeat that it is very hard to choose only a few of the “best Hungarian animations”.)

I think that the third category changed the most. In the essay I mentioned those works which are linked to the Hungarian cultural heritage (folklore, literature, history), and I had to reconsider it as a more narrow category, in contrast to the former group, which I had to make slightly broader. The third basic tendency according to my approach thus became the so-called ornamental animation. I named it inspired by a great essay written by Marcell Jankovics, in which he detailed the role of the animated metamorphosis in some of Hungarian animations (including his own films). Ornamental animation indeed is very strongly attached to Hungarian cultural legacy, especially folklore, but eventually the same can be said about the tales made in the classical animation style. So, the most important characteristic of ornamental animation is its striking visual stylization. Its main sources are the visual (thus not necessarily the narrative) elements of folklore and especially of fine arts; and the most important visual device is typically the use of delicately elaborated metamorphoses. The main artists of ornamental animation in Hungary are György Kovásznai, Marcell Jankovics, Zsolt Richly, Dóra Keresztes, István Orosz, Csaba Varga, and Ferenc Cakó with his unique and extraordinary sand animation.

The fourth category basically remained intact. It is the documentarist animated film, which tends to blur (or even erase) the otherwise very distinct boundaries between documentary and animated film. The documentarist animated films do this with different visual elements, but there is a certain convergence regarding the sound: it is very common that they use recorded speeches from everyday life, or interviews that appeared in other media (e.g. in radio broadcasting). Interestingly, a few of the directors mentioned as examples of the previous tendencies, had a role in establishing the Hungarian documentarist animated film as well, especially György Kovásznai and Béla Vajda, and in some of his films, István Orosz. The most emblematic artist of the documentarist animation was Katalin Macskássy (the daughter of Gyula Macskássy).

So, according to my research, these are the main tendencies of Hungarian animated film, which were established during the decades of the Communist regime (and that is the reason why I mentioned artists whose career began in those years), but they are prolific to this day, and contemporary directors continue these trends more or less. The fifth characteristic you mentioned, the so-called Aesopic language, the main theme of the essay, is significantly different from the other tendencies. It was specific in a certain period – during the Communist regime –, and after its ending, to use Aesopic language became irrelevant. It is understandable if we consider Aesopic language as a strategy of creating some kind of hidden messages which “invisibly” offer the critique of the party state, the oppressive regime. Some short animated films from those decades undeniably could be interpreted as some kind of criticism of the oppressors. But from 1990, the regime changed, and in the last 30 years there have not been any more of such restrictions controlling artistic creativity and freedom. The difference can be seen clearly by comparing animated films with similar themes made before and after the end of Communism. While the animated films made in 1977 about executions (Csaba Szórády: Rondino, István Kovács: Változó idők / Changing Times) can be interpreted as depictions of the cruelties committed by the party state, the Communist terror, it is not a question of interpretation, but crystal clear that Zoltán Szilágyi Varga’s short film, titled Jegyzőkönyv – Mansfeld Péter emlékére / Court Record – In Memoriam Péter Mansfeld (made in 2006) explicitly deals with the outrageous savageness of the Communist regime, accurately recalling the details of the execution of a young martyr of the Hungarian revolution in 1956. In this regard, Aesopic language was a historically determined artistic invention, and unlike the other tendencies, it does not seem to be continuable.

You wrote two books about Hungarian animation; "A magyar animációs film: intézmény- és formatörténeti közelítések / Hungarian Animated Film: Approaches in Formal and Institutional History" and "A kecskeméti animációs film / Animated Film in Kecskemét". So, please explain about these two books to Japanese readers. Why did you write these two books, how do the books work for film critique in Hungary, where and what is Kecskemét considering Hungarian animation history?

The essay we talked about in the previous question was a smaller part of a larger research project, which was supported by the scholarship of the Nemzeti Kiválóság Program (National Excellence Program) during 2013 and 2014. The most important result of my research was a book, a monography examining Hungarian animated film which in those years (in 2014–2015) was about to celebrate its 100th birthday. It was a very fortunate period for me, because my personal interest in the animated film as a film historian met this precious anniversary, so I had the chance to be the first who attempted to survey the whole 100 years long history of Hungarian animated film, or at least to summarize its main tendencies. Of course, I could rely on several previous texts about the past of Hungarian animated film (there are many interviews with the artists in particular), but I had to reconfigure what has already been said, and I was going to come up with new results. The manuscript was basically finished in 2015, and it was published at the end of 2016. Its title, as you mentioned, shows that I tried to approach Hungarian animated film from different angles. I used two basic patterns.
The first one considers the institutional, economical and technical circumstances of Hungarian animation, and their relation to historical, political and social questions. This approach gives the smaller part of the book, and it shows the main factors of the four basic periods. The first one is the period of the pioneers, which roughly started from the 1910s and lasted till the early 1930s. Unfortunately there are extremely few (only a handful) animated films that survived these decades, because they were lost or had been destroyed – including the film which is supposed to be the very first Hungarian animated film, István Kató-Kiszly’s Zsirb Ödön (made in 1914–1915). The second period (from the early 1930s to the late 1950s) is centred upon its key figure, the head of several studios and the director of some animation milestones, Gyula Macskássy, who was not the first director making animated film in Hungary, but his persistence led to the stabilization of animated film making in the country. The next main period started in the late 1950s and lasted till the end of the 1980s, and it definitely means the most fruitful time of Hungarian animation: its base was Pannónia Filmstúdió (Pannonia Film Studio), led by dr. György Matolcsy, and it became one of the largest animated film industries in Europe, and worldwide as well. The 1960s were the golden age of individual short films, the 1970s resulted in the booming of the animated series, while the 1980s are considered as the most prolific period of the Hungarian full-length animated films. The next period started from the 1990s, which is Hungarian animation after the end of Communism, and maybe this is what we have nowadays, or maybe a new period began during the second half of the 2010s. It is hard to tell at this point; at least when I was writing the book, it did not seem necessary to open a “new chapter”. Now, it seems worth considering, but it is another task.

In the larger part of the book, my approach is basically aesthetical. In this part I delineate those tendencies that I was talking about in my answer to the previous question. However, I had to choose a more coherent structure for the collections of film analysis and for the discussion of specific ouvres. The order of the chapters follows a possible classification of the animated film types (or animated film forms): this part begins with cartoon or drawn animation, continues with the variants of stop-motion animation (puppet, clay, object animation and the so-called pixilation), then cut-out and collage animation, paint animation and CGI animation are discussed, and finally it finishes with the special case of combined animated forms.

The focus of my second book about Hungarian animation seems narrower, however the research process exposed that this special theme is not less rich than the comprehensive examination at all. As the title of the book says, its “hero” is the animated film making studio located in Kecskemét. The theme of the follow-up book was obvious for many reasons, including professional and personal ones as well. Everyone who gets to know Hungarian animation, soon she or he will learn that animated films were not only made in Budapest (the capital city of Hungary). There are two rural towns where animated film making was also developed: in Kecskemét and in Pécs. In both of these towns the animated film studios were established by the Pannonia Film Studio (located in the capital city), firstly in Kecskemét in 1971, and then in Pécs in 1979. Of the two rural animated studios, the one in Kecskemét became more successful, it set up its own very recognizable profile, and even connected to the international circulation of the animated film profession by establishing Hungary’s first animated film festival, named KAFF (Kecskemét Animated Film Festival), which has international competition programs as well. (Between 1985 and 2019, KAFF was organized 14 times.) The animation studio in Kecskemét has been headed by Ferenc Mikulás from the beginning till the present, and under his direction the studio survived the economical difficulties of the 1990s, and it even survived its parent company (Pannónia was closed in the late 2000s). The studio became independent and changed its name to Kecskemétfilm Ltd. during the first half of the 1990s, and since then it has been a similarly decisive company as Pannonia Film Studio was in the earlier period (during Communism).

I think that their success can be explained at least by two factors. First, since the early days of the studio, Ferenc Mikulás has always ambitioned that the animated films made there have to keep and pass on the Hungarian cultural legacy, thus he also works as a producer of animations which are based on Hungarian folklore, literature and history. While the ornamental animation was one of Pannónia’s recognizable but not dominant tendencies, it became the dominant trend in the animation of Kecskemétfilm (this is a significant difference between Pannónia and Kecskemétfilm). The other factor resembles more the “cultural politics” of Pannónia, because – as Giannalberto Bendazzi also mentions in his colossal book about animated film history – the animated film in Hungary created a delicate balance between the popular and the artistic animation. (In other words, the same studio, Pannónia introduced Attila Dargay’s enormously successful classical full-length animated films and György Kovásznai’s and Sándor Reisenbüchler’s wildly experimental and offbeat short films.) A similar tendency can be discovered in the repertoire of Kecskemétfilm, as the studio supports very popular and successful series (including Hungarian Folk Tales, the significance of which I have already emphasized, or Vízipók-csodapók / Water-Spider, Wonder-Spider and Mesék Mátyás királyról / Tales about King Matthias) as well as experimental works which are very close to fine arts and poetry. This delicate balance can be checked by everyone; most of these animations can be found on the YouTube channels of Kecskemétfilm: the series and films for a wider audience can be found here, while the experimental films can be seen here.

Basically, my book mapping these tendencies of Kecskemétfilm, focuses on the series on the one hand, and on the individual short films on the other hand, examining ouvres of artists such as Mária Horváth, Péter Szoboszlay, Zoltán Szilágyi Varga, Gizella Neuberger, Gábor Ulrich. Of course, this book also begins with the chronicle of the institution, considering how economical, technical, political, social etc. circumstances affected the life of the studio. 

Last but not least, I promised some personal aspects as well, because this research was more personal than the previous one. I was born and raised in Kecskemét, I live here as well, so it is not very surprising I had some connection with the studio even during my childhood. I was a member of the student jury of KAFF in 1999, and maybe it was the first time I really marvelled at how rich the world of animation really is. In the next year I got acquainted with Péter Szoboszlay, one of the most important members of Kecskemétfilm. Actually, he belonged to the “new wave” of Hungarian animation in the 1960s, as one of the young animated film makers who reconfigured the individual short films (along with – to name but a few – Marcell Jankovics, György Kovásznai, Zsolt Richly, József Gémes, Sándor Reisenbüchler). During the 1960s and 1970s in Budapest he made such great short films as Sós lötty / Salt Soup, Rend a házban / Order in the House, Hé, Te! / Hey You!. He moved to Kecskemét in 1980 when Ferenc Mikulás invited him to join the team in Kecskemét, and since then he has been living here. He made remarkable animations in Kecskemét as well, for example the sociographic yet lyrical Hogyan kerül Eszter az asztalra? / How did Esther get on the Table?. From 2000 to 2018 Péter Szoboszlay was the director and the teacher of a special class which aimed to teach animation for 10–16-year-old children. The name of the special class was “Képről Képre” which means “Frame by Frame”, referring to the essential characteristic of animated film making in general. For 2 years (at the very beginning of the 2000s) I was a member of the group. That is where I got my basic knowledge about the compelling world of the animated film art. So, with such a background I have to say that it was inevitable for me (maybe it was fate) to write a book about the animated film making situated in Kecskemét. With the support of Magyar Művészeti Akadémia (Hungarian Academy of Arts) I began the research and writing in 2017, and two years later the book was published. I hope I will succeed in developing this series of books about Hungarian animation into a kind of a “trilogy”, where the last volume would focus on the ouvres of a few directors. Again, with the support of the scholarship of Magyar Művészeti Akadémia, I have recently started to elaborate this new book about contemporary animated film directors, who are unmissable considering the last three decades of Hungarian animation.

You also asked me about the reception of the aforementioned books. It is actually a delicate question, because the critical or theoretical reception of Hungarian animation (including the books on the topic) cannot be considered as particularly layered. Let me put it in other words. I think it can be said that the attention of film criticism and especially film theory in Hungary is paid basically to live-action films and (to a certain degree) documentary films, while the animated film is still a relatively neglected area of thinking about films in Hungary. Of course, this does not mean that there is no critical response of the award-winning short animated films (and fortunately we have plenty of them nowadays) because the press do deal with these films. But I am not convinced that the rare theoretical research on animation does have any effect on thinking about animated film in general and Hungarian animated film in particular. As I see it, for the scientific field (i.e. the film theory faculties at universities) the animated film is somehow “invisible”, to say the least.

Regarding these circumstances, although my books undoubtedly raised some attention (especially the second one), at this moment I can hardly estimate their effect (if there is any) on the discourse about Hungarian animation. I would also like to emphasize that there is only a handful of us who deal with Hungarian animated film systematically (not necessarily based on scholarly approaches). First and foremost, I have to mention Éva M Tóth and Anna Ida Orosz. Éva M Tóth is an animated film director and teacher who published several essays and books about Hungarian animation (especially considering directors). She also made a television documentary series about Hungary’s animation masters. Anna Ida Orosz works at the Nemzeti Filmintézet (National Film Institute), where she deals with Hungarian animation, and during the last few years she coordinated the restoration and DVD edition of several fundamental Hungarian animated films. Five years ago Zsófi Herczeg launched a great website, a blog called Dot&Line (named after the cartoon masterpiece of Chuck Jones), which deals especially with Hungarian animation, regardless the questions of form, length and date of making. Brigitta Iványi-Bitter’s monograph on György Kovásznai was an important step to pay attention to almost forgotten ouvres (her book was published 10 years ago). Péter Gerencsér is also a researcher of the past of Hungarian animation, he mainly focuses on the Hungarian émigrés who contributed to animated film making of other nations (for example, George Pal, John Halas, Jean Image, Jules Engel, Peter Földes etc.). Similarly, in 2011 Márton Orosz published a very insightful booklet about the mapping of the careers of Hungarian émigrés who made animated films worldwide.

I mentioned those who began to do research on or deal with Hungarian animated film mainly after the turn of the Millennium. However, not even in the previous century was the number of those much bigger who dealt with Hungarian animation systematically. But without the essays, interviews or books by Eszter Dizseri, Erzsébet Lendvai, Sándor Féjja, Tibor Kelemen and István Antal – to name just a few of them –, our work would have been or would be much more difficult.