Local filmmaker Judy Irving is best known both near and far as the maker of The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, but her production company always has been called Pelican Media. "These birds I've loved all my life," Irving tells us early on in the narration of her new documentary, and, "When that pelican landed on the Golden Gate Bridge, it felt like an invitation to follow it." Pelican Dreams begins with footage of said traffic-clogging, headline-making event, and gently unfurls into Irving's intimate meditation on modern mankind's relationship — rather destructive, naturally — with ancient sea birds, particularly the California brown pelican. Soon she meets wildlife rehabilitator Monte Merrick, who answers her suggestion that they call the bridge visitor Gigi, for Golden Gate, by explaining that his team avoids naming animals, to remind themselves they're not pets: "We don't hand feed them. We try not to make eye contact." But pelicans make eye contact. Irving keeps calling her Gigi anyway. The bird's recovery and release becomes a framework for a backgrounder on her species — serenely attentive, like a classic nature show, but also just as unabashedly personal as we'd expect from a trusty old-school San Francisco nature appreciator. The audience for Pelican Dreams may be small and self-selecting, but it's a comfort to know there is such an audience, and a credit to Irving's moviemaking priorities.
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