THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED

'''The Adventures of Prince Achmed''' () () is a 1926 feature-length animated film by the German animator Lotte Reiniger. It is the oldest surviving feature-length animated film (two earlier films were made in Argentina by Quirino Cristiani, but they are considered lost[1]), and it featured a silhouette animation technique Reiniger had invented which involved manipulated cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead under a camera. The technique she used for the camera is similar to Wayang shadow puppets. The original prints featured color tinting. The story is based on the elements taken from the collection 1001 Arabian Nights, specifically ''The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou'' featured in Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book. With the assistance of Aladdin, the Witch of the Fiery Mountain, and a magic horse, the title character battles the evil African sorcerer to win the hand of Princess Peri Banu.

Contents

Restoration

Availability

Gallery

See also

External links

Restoration

No original German nitrate prints of the film are known to still exist. While the original film featured color tinting, prints available just prior to the restoration had all been in black and white. Working from surviving nitrate prints, German and British archivists have restored the film including adding back the original tinted backgrounds of delicate pastels.

Availability

The film is screened fairly often on Turner Classic Movies. English-market DVDs are available, NTSC R1 (from Image) and PAL R2 (from the BFI). Both versions of the DVD are identical. They feature both an English-subtitled version (the intertitles are in German) and an English voice-over.

Gallery

Scenes from the tinted version of the film on DVD:

See also

★ List of animated feature films

★ List of films made in Weimar Germany

★ List of stop-motion films

External links

★

★ Detailed notes on the film, including Lotte Reiniger's description of its history (PDF)

★ Information on DVD version of film

★ (contains incorrect information on film's running time)