Join host Bea Duncan as she celebrates the remarkable life of Lotte Reiniger, one of the earliest pioneers of animation who deserves far more recognition than she receives. Born in Berlin in 1899, Lotte discovered her passion for silhouette puppetry as a child and transformed it into a groundbreaking career in early cinema. From her humble beginnings creating shadow puppet shows for family and friends to revolutionizing the animation industry, Lotte’s story is one of creativity, ambition, and fearless artistic innovation.
In this episode, we explore how Lotte’s unique silhouette animation style challenged the conventions of 1920s and 30s cinema. While her contemporaries pursued realism and facial expressiveness, Lotte boldly ventured into fairy tales, fantasy, and the uncanny, creating puppets with impossibly long limbs and magical proportions. Her courage was rewarded when she achieved a historic milestone: creating The Adventures of Prince Ahmed in 1926, the first avant-garde full-length animated feature film and the oldest surviving animated feature to this day.
Bea also celebrates the often-overlooked female fireworks technicians designing spectacular pyrotechnic displays, highlighting how women continue to break barriers in industries traditionally dominated by men. If you have knowledge of historical women involved in fireworks or pyrotechnics, Bea would love to hear from you!
Main Topics
Lotte Reiniger was born in Berlin in 1899 and showed exceptional talent in silhouette cutting from childhood, creating puppet shows for family entertainment
After attending a 1915 lecture by actor-director Paul Wegner on animation possibilities, Lotte joined his acting group and worked her way into the film industry
She created an animated title card for Wagner's 1918 film 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin,' which led to her admission to the Institute for Cult Research where she met creative collaborators including Karl Koch, who became her husband
Lotte's silhouette animation style was revolutionary and deliberately went against 1920s-30s film trends by avoiding facial expressions, pursuing fantasy over realism, and creating uncanny magical creatures
In 1926, she completed 'The Adventures of Prince Ahmed,' making history as the first avant-garde full-length animated feature film and the oldest surviving animated feature
Her willingness to take creative risks and challenge industry conventions proved that animated films could captivate audiences for feature length, paving the way for modern animation
Full TranscriptYou're listening to Girls, Girls Girls, the podcast rewriting History one episode at a time. I'm Bea Duncan. Well, hello...▼
You're listening to Girls, Girls Girls, the podcast rewriting History one episode at a time. I'm Bea Duncan. Well, hello there and welcome to Girls, Girls Girls. I am Bea Duncan, as always, and I am coming to you from women's radio station. And we are the show attempting to rewrite history one episode at a time, as I'm sure you know. And if you're new to the podcast, essentially every single week, it is a journey through the life of an inspirational woman who should be a household name, but who isn't for some reason or another, usually because she's a woman. But, you know, today we are going to be talking about one of the earliest pioneers of animation, Charlotte, who is known as Lotte Reiniger. But first, as always, we do the celebration. And just a quick reminder that if you want to celebrate somebody you can do, you can get in contact with me at gggpod on Twitter or girlsgirlsgirlspodmail.com please do drop me a celebration somebody that you want to celebrate because we should all be celebrating each other. So it is fireworks night tonight. It's one of my favourite times of the year. I absolutely love it. I have gone to a fireworks night last weekend or on Saturday because obviously it's on a Monday today. But I want to celebrate all of the female firework technicians. There are so many amazing women who design the incredible shows that you will be going to see last weekend or tonight. And I think it must be very hard being in such an industry that appears to be for men. It's a lot of explosions and pyrotechnics and fire and it's dangerous as well. So I can imagine that it can be quite tough being a woman in that industry. But it's very, very cool. If I knew more about chemistry or about kind of design, I would definitely want to be a fireworks designer. So. So cool. So, yeah, I just want you guys to remember when you're watching those amazing shows which are sometimes timed to music, which is also am just think about the people who've put them on and especially the women, because I'm sure they need every little bit of encouragement. It must be very, very tough. And we've got to start changing our perceptions of certain careers, things that involve fire and flames and stuff. Doesn't have to be men. Some women like that as well. Not me. I'm terrified of fireworks. But I'm very, very impressed by the women who can do it. So, yes, that's who I'm stybrating today. I really, really did Try and find somebod to do for the main body of the podcast who was involved in fireworks and history. And I really struggled, but I don't believe that that's the case. I completely believe that there have been women in history who made fireworks or who helped design fireworks, but I just couldn't find them. So that really, really frustrated me because I'm sure they were there. But this is the whole reason for the podcast. So if you know of a woman in history who was involved in fireworks or even the Gunpowder Plot, please do let me know, because I did find it rather frustrating that I couldn't find anybody. But we are going to be instead talking about Lotte Reiniger. And don't forget that if you have a question for me or any sort of thing, you can tweet me ggdpod ormensradiostn or drop me an email. Girlsgirlsgirlspodmail.com I'm a fast reply. I'm almost on my phone, so you can expect a very quick reply from me. So Charlotte Reiniger was born on 2 June 1899 in Berlin. She was interested very early on by the Chinese art of silhouette puppetry, and she would often put on little silhouette puppet shows for her friends and her family in a little puppet theater that she built herself, which is very, very sweet. And she was very young when she was doing all that. So it's quite clear that where her talents lied and what she was going to go on to do in her later life. Here's a rather long quote from her, but one that I think is important to read because it really does put it into perspective of her, how she viewed her childhood. I could cut silhouettes almost as soon as I could manage to hold a pair of scissors. I could paint to and read and recite. But these things did not surprise anyone very much. But everybody was astonished about the scissor cut, which seemed a more unusual accomplishment. The silhouettes were very much praised and I cut out silhouettes for all the birthdays in the family. Did anyone warn me as to where this path would lead? Not in the least. I was encouraged to continue. So I think you can see from that quote that Lotte was very aware from early on that this was quite an important, an unusual talent and not one that everybody had. And she was really, really, really encouraged to keep working on it, which is fantastic. Supportive family, very clearly, and they wanted her to keep improving her skills and see where it could get her. In the end, it took her very, very far and I'M not sure they would have known that. So it wasn't long before Charlotte, who was known as Lotte throughout her life, began also getting into cinema. So in 1915 she went to a lecture by the actor and director Paul Wegner, who was talking about the possibilities of animation in the coming years. Lotte really showed her ambition here. She managed to get her parents to let her join his acting group at the Theatre of Max Reinhardt. And she began working backstage, making costumes and props, while also obviously continuing to. To practice her puppets and silhouette making. And this was an attempt to kind of get close to him and potentially learn something from him. And it really, really did work to her credit. So in 1918 she was asked to create the animated title card for Wagner's latest film, which was called the Pied Piper of Hamelin. And this was hugely celebrated. And it got her admitted into the Institute for Cult Research, which was an institute that was experimenting in animation and different short films, animation techniques as well. And this is really where her passion for puppetry got married to her passion for film. And she realized she probably could do the two together. There were loads and loads and loads of German creators working there too, including Bertolt Brecht, who is a very, very famous theatre practitioner, as well as Hans Kurlis and also Karl Koch, who would eventually become her creative partner and her husband. So she met a whole load of really interesting people there and they would have encouraged her to keep creatively pushing herself and trying new things. So it was in 1919 that she directed her first ever film. It was a five minute piece called the Ornament of the Enamoured Heart. And over the next few years she made six more short films which were all produced by Koch. So this was when their creative partnership began. Now it's interesting to have a look at her style. So obviously the silhouettes, the puppetry, it was very, very different to the popular art and film styles of the 20s and 30s, mostly because, as you can imagine, a silhouette, you can't see their face. And in the 20s, facial expression was a really huge, huge part of characterization, especially in cinema and in films. And so she was really, really going against the grain in this, having puppets that you couldn't see their face at all, they didn't have a face. She was also going hugely against the trend of the time of realism. So in the 20s and 30s, films were exploring realism and that was what was most popular. And yet she was really going into the genre of fairy tales. She was looking at metamorphosis, fantasy Even the bodies of her silhouettes were not usually biologically correct. They often had very extended limbs, very long fingers. And if you watch any of them, they are kind of quite uncanny looking almost because they are similar to humans. But there are often magical creatures and fairies and animals. And so she was really kind of pushing the boat out and it was a brave, brave move, but one that did work out for her. So in 1923, the writer and producer Lewis Hagen approached Lotte and asked her to make a feature length animated film. So this was during the time of inflation in Germany and he had bought a huge amount of raw film in the hope that it would be a kind of very wise investment later on because the prices at that time were rock bottom. And it seems hilarious now how baffled everyone was by this suggestion. Zlotti herself said, we had to think twice. This was a never heard of thing. Animated films were supposed to make people roar with laughter and nobody had dared to entertain an audience with them for more than 10 minutes. Everybody to whom we talked in the industry about the proposition was horrified. So it's really funny to hear that when now it seemed no one would bat an eyelid about sitting down for sometimes over two hours watching an animated film. I mean, it's one of the top genres for kind of kids films and they're so, so popular with Walt Disney and all of that. So it's incredible that it wasn't that long ago that the idea of an animated film for a feature length film was just unthinkable. However, she did decide to bite the bullet and try it. So she made a feature length animated film. It was named the Adventures of Prince Ahmed and it was completed in 1990, 1926, and it made history by being the first avant garde full length animated film, as well as being the oldest surviving animated feature. So really, really knock it out the park with those firsts there. She had made history. She tried something very new. But we're gonna have to wait to see if that pays off for her. After this short break, make sure to head over to womensradiostation.com to find out all of the things you might be interested in knowing. And when we come back after this, we're going to be talking about what happened after the first film and later on in Lotte's life. So I'll see you in a bit. WRS women's radio station, Voice of Women Worldwide. Sarah's Universal Soul Show. What does your soul or spirituality mean to you? Welcome to future Classical Woman Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on women's radio station. Welcome back, I'm Russ Cain. You're listening to in conversation with on women's radio station. I'm Angie. And I'm Patsy and we're open. To see what other programs we have on women's radio station, head to our website womensradiostation.com hi, my name is Michelle Bartlett, the founder of Live Laugh Love Ladies Club. We're looking for ladies to link arms across the globe. This is a new vibrant brand connecting women socially. Our club members enjoy great food, fun and inspiring speakers while making friends of all generations. If you're a social butterfly in your community, this fast growing franchise may be for you. Or we invite national companies to advertise within our close network of members. Please visit livelaughladies Club. Are you looking to enhance your career? Are you looking to grow your business? Well then why not? 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Whether you're thinking of having a baby, trying to get out of an unhappy relationship or just unsure what benefits you may be entitled to, we can help. Visit turntous.org.uk WRS Women's Radio Station Voice of Women Worldwide Women's radio station is a not for profit community interest company. Supporting women in is our passion. We're currently welcoming donations to help towards our running costs to keep this important initiative alive. To donate, simply head to our website. Every little will help. You're listening to Girls Girls Girls, the podcast rewriting history one episode at a time. I'm B. Duncan. Hello and welcome back everybody. You are, as I said, listening to Girls Girls Girls. I am still Bea Duncan and we are on Women's radio station today we have been talking about Lotte Regnier. And yeah, it's been a very, very exciting first half, I'm sure you can agree, and I hope that you've been there for it. But at the moment we're right in the middle of her first feature length animated film, and in fact the first feature length animated film ever. So let's see how that pans out for her. So it took her almost a year to find a distributor for this film, but finally, with the support of Jean Renoir, it premiered in Paris. Unfortunately, however, because of the weight, the film no longer fit into the style of cinema that was popular at that time. As I mentioned earlier, her style was kind of magical. You couldn't see faces. And at the time people wanted expressionistic realism. That's what they were really after. So the film was received well, but it really wasn't that popular because it wasn't what people wanted to see. Probably also added into the fact that, as I said, it was the first animated feature length film. People would have been skeptical about it. And so it wasn't the kind of smash hit that one might have expected. Lotte ended up designing the predecessor for the first multi plane camera. So this was how she did her films and made her art. She used a camera with a manual shutter over the top of her animation table, which was layered up with planes of glass and backlit the whole time. She has a book called Shadow Puppets, Shadow Theatres and Shadow Films. And in that it kind of lays out her process and how she actually made the animation. But the multi plane camera, which was eventually used by the likes of Walt Disney, she did it before Walt Disney about 10 years before. So she was really, really trailblazing in that sense because she made all of her films with this camera that she invented basically because of how, well, relatively well Prince AFMA did. Lotte was able to make another feature length film in 1928 called Dr. Dolittle and His Animals. And a year later she co directed a live action film with Rocco Giles called the Pursuit of Happiness. And it was all about a shadow puppet troupe. So it really did lend itself very well for her. And unfortunately the film was delayed for a year because it came out just at the time that sound came to Germany, which meant that the film had to be dubbed over with voices. Lotte herself even performed in the film for about 20 minutes. She was one of the characters. And so that was a very interesting kind of clash. It was another new part of cinema that was being experimented in. She was really at the forefront of the exploration of cinema. So she then attempted to make a third animated feature film which was inspired by the opera the Child and the Bewitched things. However, this one was a real, real struggle. So the opera, the composer Ravel, she really struggled to get the rights from him and as well as various other kind of copyrighted parts of the opera. And eventually raville died in 1934. But that actually made it more complicated to try and get the rights. And eventually Lotte had to abandon the project altogether, which is very sad and I personally would have loved to see that and what she would have done with it. But I guess she couldn't keep battling against the copyrights as Lotte and her husband were both quite heavily involved in left wing political activity. And they were also kind of liberal creatives as such. With the rise of the Nazi Party, they decided together to try and emigrate. But they really, really struggled because no country would give them a permanent visa. So they spent essentially 11 whole years kind of jumping from country to country on short term visas. And they were living and working with various creatives, including Jean Renoir in Paris and Lucino Viviconte in Rome. So because of this struggle with the visas and because they knew they really didn't want to go back to Germany, they were having to basically be vagabonds, jumping around, trying to find somewhere that they could settle for a little bit of time. But eventually Lotte's mother became very, very ill and they were forced to move back to Berlin. But in that time, in 11 whole years, despite jumping around together, they made 12 films, including Carmen and Papageno. So it didn't affect their creativity very much. If anything, it might have stimulated it a bit because they were meeting with so many different creatives. So in order to be able to take care of her mother safely, Lotte had to basically abandon her left wing stances. And she ended up being forced to make propaganda films for Hitler, including the Golden Goose in 1944. That would have been a real, real struggle for her. Obviously she had to choose between her political feelings and her own mother. And I guess she chose Family first, which is completely fair enough. After the war, the two of them moved to London and with the help of the son of Lotte's financer for the first film, Prince Ahmed, they founded Primrose Productions in 1953. And they started making loads and loads of short silhouette animations based on Grimm's Fairy Tales, which went down very, very well indeed. Sadly, however, this high was quite short lived. Lotte went into kind of seclusion for quite a long time when her husband died in 1963, and her creativity really suffered during this time. She was in seclusion and she was eventually able to regain her love for the craft. She only ended up making three more films in her lifetime after that. But she returned to Germany and she also visited the USA to do this. Thanks to all of that, she was awarded the Film Band in Gold of the Dutch film press in 1972. And in 1979 she received the Great Cross of the Order of Merit for the Federal Republic of Germany. Lott died just after her 82nd birthday on June 19, 1981, back in her home country of Germany. She, in her lifetime had made over 40 films, all of them using the multiplane camera that she herself had invented. And her art and film style has been the influence of many popular films even in recent years. So you can tell that she was quite influential. The animation style that she became famous for was used in the end Credits of the 2004 film series of Unfortunate Events, and perhaps even more recognisably was used in the 2010 film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. There's a short film within that film, if you remember, called the Tale of the Three Brothers, and it has been used with the kind of silhouette style and it works very effectively in my opinion. She's even been paid homage to in an episode of Steven Universe, which is a kind of adult animation. And yeah, so you can notice she's been paid homage to you in that as well. If your interest has been at all piqued by any of this, then you're pleased to know that there is a permanent exhibition in Tubbagein which has Lotta's original material. It's called the World in Light and Shadow, Silhouette, Shadow Theatre and Silhouette Film. You can also see her actual animation table in an exhibition at the Film Museum in Dusseldorf, or you can head to the BFI National Archive and see a load of collections which are relating to her there. On June 2, 2016, Reninger reached the pinnacle of success and she got a Google doodle to celebrate her hundred. That is definitely how you know that you've made it when you make it onto Google. So she was recognized and I'm hoping that a few people would have noticed who she was and maybe read up a little bit about her then, but you never know. I would really, really recommend going to watch some of Lotte's films. Loads and loads and loads of them are on YouTube. Literally just type in her name and you'll be able to see, you will recognize the style almost immediately. I, before I researched her, I didn't know who she was and once I started watching some of the things, it all came back to me. It was so recognisable and it's amazing that she was this trailblazer and she created the genre of animation feature length that we now enjoy so much today. And she has such amazing way of telling stories. Honestly, her characterization is beautiful. Even though they don't have faces and they don't really talk, I think it's a real thing skill to be able to do that and to be doing that with a camera that she invented herself. So that is very, very cool. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. It's been very enjoyable for me and I hope it has been for you as well. You've been listening to Girls Girls Girls. It's a women's radio station and if you wanted to listen to it again, catch up on our previous programs, you can head to prevent presenters page on womensradiostation.com now, as always, I love to hear from you guys. Anything that you want, whether you want to suggest a topic, suggest a woman or even just have a chat, you can do. So very friendly. You can contact me on Twitter gggpod or Women's Radio Stn. On Instagram it's earlsgirlsgirlspod or womensradiostn again. And and if you want to email, it's presentersomensradiostation.com or girlsgirlsgirlsmail.com I'm especially keen to hear about people's celebrations. I really, really would like to get some people who want to celebrate people in their own lives or talk about something that has inspired them. Because I can't get to everything. There are definitely going to be events and exhibitions, shows, whatever that I have missed that are done by incredible women. So please do get in contact. Thank you very, very much for listening and I will see you hopefully next week where we'll be talking about yet another amazing, groundbreaking. Welcome to women's radio Station, the voice of women worldwide. Hungry an average woman eats about 2 to 3 kilos of lipstick in her lifetime. Women's Radio Station, we want to hear from you. This is Women's radio Station. 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