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jimbokun
I’m shocked I never heard of this before.

Just watched the first couple minutes of The Adventures of Prince Achmed and it’s unlike anything I’ve seen before.

acoster
IIRC, that's the movie they play on loop at the kids section of Landesmuseum in Zürich.
yiyus
Starevich was doing stop motion animated films in 1912: "The Beautiful Leukanida" or "The Cameraman's Revenge".
bentley
100 years old, yet its copyright only expired five years ago—in the United States. In Europe and other life+70 regions, the film will remain copyrighted past 2050, even though Lotte Reiniger died nearly half a century ago!
klondike_klive
Animators (and storyboarders, layout artists, illustrators etc) are still taught to prioritise the clarity and readability of the character's silhouette, although they're usually working with a three quarter view (between side profile and front-on) rather than a profile like the shadow puppets here. Still I can't help thinking this film would be a good object of study.

Some of the forest scenes remind me of the original King Kong in their use of dark foreground shapes and framing devices to give an impression of scale.

https://youtu.be/j6DaB0Is4jM?t=1720

https://youtu.be/1vNv-pE8I_c?t=72

FpUser
Never heard about it before and just watched it on youtube. I have found it absolutely beautiful.
JoeDaDude
For those interested in the subject, animation has quite a history before Disney came onto the scene. I suggest this book:

Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898-1928 by Donald Crafton

Personally, I remain impressed to this day with the pioneering work of Winsor McCay, the cartoonist who created Little Nemo. Perhaps the best example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW71mSedJuU