Goethe, OCAD U, and TAIS present a free expert panel discussion revisiting the paper art and animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger, her early design and moving image innovation–inspired by German Scherenschnitte and the ancient Chinese art of paper cutting–from Berlin to her work at the National Film Board of Canada. Her lasting legacy will be illustrated with examples by students and contemporary animators.

This panel will be accompanied by a screening at OCAD U of the Goethe-Institut’s catalogue of Reiniger films from 1916 to 1956 and a professional silhouette workshop with the Toronto Animated Image Society (TAIS).

Over a 50-year career in the early 20th century, Lotte Reiniger made over sixty films, often fantastical and set to music from Mozart to Britten. Her stunning silhouette films were created from intricate cut-out figures with hinged joints, which were delicately hand-manipulated and captured by stop motion photography. The 1926 classic ‘The Adventures of Prince Ahmed’ is lauded as the first full-length animated feature (and one of the first to include openly gay lovers); her short ‘Aucassin and Nicolette’ was created in 1975 at the National Film Board of Canada. The multi-talented artist, costume and set designer, book illustrator, writer-director invented the first multiplane camera and created shadow play sequences for G.W. Pabst and Jean Renoir. Reiniger’s format exploration and imagination, inspired by travels to Egypt and Greece as well as her exile in Britain, was boundless. Her influence to this day reaches from Disney to Harry Potter films.