Description
For three years throughout the 1920s, in an attic in Potsdam, a young woman crafted what is nowadays the oldest surviving animated feature film. Equipped with scissors, cardboard, sheets of lead, glass panes and a camera, animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger filmed Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed) the use of one way of frame-by-frame silhouette animation she developed, inspired by Chinese shadow puppetry. As the results of quite a few factors–her gender, her German ethnicity, World War II and a loss of funding–Reiniger become a footnote in animation history. Yet her 60-plus films it seems that show her skill and dedication to her craft. This detailed account of her life and work describes her significant contributions to animation, puppetry, Weimar cinema and up to date filmmaking.