The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the Oldest Surviving Animated Feature Film, Is Now in the Public Domain (1926)

"The Adventures of Prince Achmed lays fair claim to being the earliest animated feature film in existence. If we do grant it that title, it beats the next contender by more than a decade. While Prince Achmed came out a century ago, in 1926, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, whose production was presided over by a certain Walt Disney, didn't reach theaters until 1937."

"The making of Snow White was, by the standards of the day, a vast undertaking, requiring Disney to marshal artistic and industrial resources at a scale then unknown in animation. Prince Achmed, by contrast, owes its existence mostly to the work of one woman: Lotte Reiniger, who first learned the craft of scherenschnitte silhouette-making as a little girl in Berlin."

"Scherenschnitte was inspired by what was thought to be ancient Chinese arts of paper-cutting and puppetry, but when watched today, Prince Achmed or the other animations Reiniger created bring more readily to mind traditional Javanese shadow puppet theater: an aesthetic that, in a sense, suits the source material ideally."

The Adventures of Prince Achmed holds the distinction of being the earliest animated feature film, released in 1926, over a decade before Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Unlike Snow White, which required Disney to marshal vast artistic and industrial resources, Prince Achmed was created primarily through the work of one woman: Lotte Reiniger. She pioneered the scherenschnitte silhouette-making technique, which she learned as a child in Berlin. This technique was inspired by ancient Chinese paper-cutting and puppetry arts. When viewed today, Prince Achmed's silhouette animations resemble traditional Javanese shadow puppet theater, an aesthetic that suits the source material ideally.

Read at Open Culture