Son of the White Mare

Son of the White Mare (Fehérlófia) is a 1981 Hungarian animated fantasy feature directed by Marcell Jankovics at the Pannonia Film Studio, made between 1979 and 1981 as his second animated feature. It retells the Hungarian folk tale of a hero nursed on a mare's milk, drawing on the narrative poem of the same title by László Arany and on older steppe legends, and its imagery mixes creation myth, the World Tree and psychedelic transformation. The hero Fanyüvő, the Treeshaker, and his brothers Stonecrusher and Ironbender go down to an underworld to slay three dragons and free three princesses, but the brothers leave Fanyüvő behind, and he escapes only on the back of a griffin that he feeds with his own leg, which its chicks later restore. The film was placed forty-ninth on the Olympiad of Animation in 1984, became a cult favourite among animators, and was restored in 4K by Arbelos Films, with a screening at the 2019 Fantasia International Film Festival.