Institut für Kulturforschung

The first film directed by influential German-born silhouette animator Lotte Reiniger is delightfully reminiscent of a Valentine’s Day card come to life. Two lovers interact with an ornate background that shifts and changes in tandem with their own balletic movements as they express their feelings for each other.

Lotte Reiniger's interpretation of Grimm's recorded version of Aschenputtel (Cinderella) from 1922.

Lotte Reiniger's earliest preserved fairytale film based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.

“This film, based on the Grimm fairy tale, is a trifle later than Munchausen and The Flying Coffer but more elementary than Cinderella. It completes the number of silhouette films made by the Institut für Kulturforschung.” - The [London] Film Society, December 1928.

A study of the artist at work.

The original nativity story animated silent film by Lotte Reiniger.

Silhouette animation based on the tales of Baron Munchausen. “This film, primitive in technique, is contemporary with Miss Reiniger's first silhouette film The Flying Coffer, shown by the Society. Mr. Felgenauer's design is individual.” - The [London] Film Society, 1928.

Hans Cürlis films Kandinsky at work.

Captures Alexander Calder at work on a wire model.

“A film made to illustrate the changing scenery, architecture, garments and face of the Danube Bank.” - BFI.

In the best films of Hans Cürlis the acts of filming and painting coincide. The portrait of a portraitist. Max Oppenheimer (Mopp; 1885-1954) was a well-known portraitist and painter of musicians and orchestras. In this case he paints the portrait of Heinrich Mann, while Cürlis portrays Heinrich Mann as he is being portrayed by Mopp and Mopp as he is portraying Heinrich Mann. Thus the "Schaffende Hände" — Creative Hands — are both those of the painter and those of the film director Cürlis: these are hand-made films.

Hans Cürlis films George Grosz at work.

Hans Cürlis films Lovis Corinth at work. "In the physical act of applying the colour spots, Corinth discovered something: drama, tempo; things were processes, in the technical sense also, which were brought together in the unity of expression" (Carl Einstein). Cürlis makes this visible.