Synopsis
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) can be watched online on iFILM — it is widely considered the oldest surviving animated feature film in cinema history. German director Lotte Reiniger spent three years cutting every character by hand from black cardboard, frame by frame.
The story comes from One Thousand and One Nights. A Moroccan sorcerer builds a mechanical flying horse; Prince Achmed climbs on and is carried to the coast of China, where he fights demons, meets the princess Pari Banu, and picks up an unexpected ally — Aladdin, who has lost his ring. The sorcerer hunts them across the world.
Reiniger's silhouette technique — cut-paper puppets on backlit frosted glass, one frame at a time — predates Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by eleven years. The film was rediscovered and restored in the 1970s. Stream The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) online on iFILM.
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