A Film That Shines After One Hundred Years

A still from The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)Welcome! This is another Sunday issue of the Animation Obsessive newsletter, and our slate goes like this:1. A story for the centenary of The Adventures of Prince Achmed.2. Animation newsbits.Now, let’s go!1. Reiniger on her creationIt was a century ago this weekend. On the Sunday of May 2, 1926, the first public screening of The Adventures of Prince Achmed took place in Berlin.1 The film is the earliest animated feature that survives today. It predates Snow White by more than a decade — and, after one hundred years, it’s still an incredible thing.The author Cecile Starr once wrote, “The Adventures of Prince Achmed is an acclaimed masterpiece … [that] is also amusing, surprising, frightening, passionate and entertaining, which means that it can easily hold its own against non-masterpieces as well.” She was absolutely correct.2Behind the film was animator Lotte Reiniger, a member of Weimar Germany’s bohemian art scene. With silhouettes…