About

Join us for an entrancing Live Music and Film screening of Lotte Reiniger’s groundbreaking feature length animation The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926, which was inspired by global traditions of shadow puppetry. Reiniger painstakingly manipulated hand-cut paper silhouettes, frame-by-frame, to create a magical interpretation of the stories of the Arabian nights.

The silent film will be accompanied with a performance by award-winning soprano, Heather Lee, and Professor Kim Cunio, who will perform as Oscar and Marigold. Their newly composed score will draw on sacred, medieval, and early music traditions from various cultures.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed is an enchanted, fairy-tale journey. Based on tales from 1001 Arabian Nights, it tells a classic good versus evil tale replete with a brave adventurer, a wicked sorcerer, a princess and a flying horse. Painstakingly made over three years, Lotte Reiniger’s intricately hand-cut silhouette animation is the earliest surviving animated feature film and remains one of the most magical puppetry films of all time.