Directed by Claire Parker and Alexandre Alexeieff • 1933 • France
Taking eighteen months to make, this dizzyingly surreal pinscreen animation interprets music by Mussorgsky as interplay between shadow/light, permanence/impermanence, motion/stillness, human/animal, and night/day. Claire Parker and Alexandre Alexeieff slowly created the imagery for this dream-like world by constantly adjusting the pins on the board and then filming what their shadows generated.
Up Next in Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology
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The Stolen Heart
Directed by Lotte Reiniger • 1934 • Germany
Based on a fable by Ernst Keienburg, this short drama exhibits an entrancing sense of space. Its story about a monstrous man who steals a town’s musical instruments has led scholars to make the case that THE STOLEN HEART is an anti-Nazi allegory. When ...
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Papageno
Directed by Lotte Reiniger • 1935 • Germany
An example of Lotte Reiniger’s animated music films based on opera, PAPAGENO is filled with impeccable attention to detail. Papageno, a bird catcher from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” idles away the time with his avian companions, fights an undulating sn...
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Day of Freedom
Directed by Leni Riefenstahl • 1935 • Germany
Taking its title from the Nuremberg Rally of 1935, this short documentary presents the armed forces of the Third Reich as an efficient system of bodies and machines in motion. The film is a dangerous celebration—through dynamic visuals and careful ed...
