ABSTRACT
During Germany's financial crisis, Louis Hagen, a banker acquaintance, had invested in a large quantity of raw film stock as a shelter from inflation, but the gamble hadn't paid off, and so Lotte was allowed to use it to make Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, a Thousand and One Night Fantasy, in the magnificent tradition of the Shadow Theatre that originated from Asia, from China, India, and Indonesia, which in fact is one of the founding stones of intercultural synergy between the East and West. Shadow puppetry may be as old as the discovery of shadows themselves. Describing the process of animation, Lotte Reiniger explained that before any acting there is a lot of technique involved to move the flat silhouette puppets around. Lotte's interest in silhouette films matched perfectly with the fascination with shadows that she shared with Expressionist filmmakers like Fritz Lang, Robert Wiene, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, and Albin Grau who had designed both Nosferatu and Schatten.
