Film Restored – Workshop Report and Screening “Lotte Reiniger Revisited – On matters of discontinuity and discoloration”

Exile

Workshop report

“Lotte Reiniger Revisited – On matters of discontinuity and discoloration” with Anke Mebold (DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Frankfurt/Main)
In English

Lotte Reiniger’s oeuvre stands as an example of a film career thrown out of whack by the totalitarian regime of Germany’s Third Reich and the ravages of World War II. Internationally celebrated as a great German filmmaker, Reiniger became a British citizen in 1962. Her disjointed career is reflected in the way her work survives, strewn across archives worldwide.

Screening

‘Helen La Belle’
UK 1957, Director: Lotte Reiniger

OV
Original format: 35 mm, 1:1.37, color
Screening print: 35 mm, 14 min, DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut& Filmmuseum

Paris is given an apple inscribed “to the fairest goddess” and he is tasked with deciding whether to award it to Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite. He chooses Aphrodite because she promises to help him win Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris and Helen fall in love, but she is already married to King Menelaus. So the gods use subterfuge to allow Paris and Helen to escape together.

‘A Night in a Harem’
UK 1958, Director: Lotte Reiniger

OV
Original format: 35 mm, 1:1.37, color
Screening print: DCP, 15 min, DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut& Filmmuseum

Colored silhouette animation set to a modern arrangement of Mozart. A hot-air balloon inscribed “just married” makes an emergency landing in the desert. Both bride and groom survive unscathed, but a band of men on horseback falls upon them and makes off with the bride. While the sultan greets the newest addition to his harem with gleeful anticipation, the groom manages to escape from his bonds. The two flee, but the sultan’s men are hot on their heels.

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