Fall Film Series: Magical Shadows

Thursday, September 27 at 7pm

An evening of intricate shadow puppet short films created by the early twentieth-century German artist Lotte Reiniger. “I believe in the truth of fairy-tales more than I believe in the truth in the newspaper,” said Lotte Reiniger, the shadow puppeteer who in 1926 created The Adventures of Prince Achmed, possibly the first feature-length animation film. Using scissors and black paper, she created silhouettes of extraordinary delicacy and subtlety. Inspired by Eastern silhouette puppetry, Reiniger began performing her own shadow puppet shows for family and friends as a child. She went on to make many beautiful films until her death in 1981. Most of her films are difficult to find outside of Europe, so we are especially thrilled to screen a series of her short animations.