Runtime: 10 minutes / Language: English / Genre: Short Animated Documentary
Publicity: Adam Segal / The 2050 Group / 212.642.4317 / [email protected]
Lotte that Silhouette Girl, Directed by Elizabeth Beecherl and Carla Patullo / [email protected] / 310.779.1762 LOGLINE (25 words):
Once a small girl, from Berlin, hailed from the shadows, a light from within.
ALTERNATE LOGLINE (25 words):
Once upon a time, long before Disney and other animation giants, Lotte Reiniger ignited the screen with shadows, light, and a pair of magical scissors.
SHORT SYNOPSIS (59 words):
Before Walt Disney, there was a trailblazing woman at the vanguard of animation. Influenced by folktales and legends, Lotte Reiniger was a tour de force of creativity and innovation: she invented the multiplane camera and created the oldest surviving animated feature. This stunning film explores the life and times of a woman who is finally being given her due.
LONG SYNOPSIS (185 words):
Once upon a time, long before Disney and the other animation giants, Lotte Reiniger ignited the screen with shadows, light, and a pair of magical scissors.
And so with music, magic, and a stirring narration by Lotte herself, LOTTE THAT SILHOUETTE GIRL tells the largely unknown story of one of animations’ biggest influencers. Her unique style of storytelling and visual contrast inspired many, including modern day filmmakers Henry Selick, Anthony Lucas and many others. Lotte's 1926 film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the oldest surviving feature length animation, and she also invented the multi‐plane camera, both of which changed the field of animation forever. And sadly, both feats are often mistakenly credited to Walt Disney. This stunning documentary uses Lotte’s unique silhouette style as it re‐writes history from a new point of view to tell the magical and charming fairy tale that was Lotte Reiniger’s life. It is a visual symphony that will delight audiences with its smart, artful, and romantic animation accompanied by a truly imaginative and emotional musical score as well as the wonderful narration of Lotte’s gravely and thickly accented voice.
KEY ACCOLADES:
Shortlisted for the 2018 IDA Awards. Nominations to be announced in Nov. 2018
Winner of BEST U.S. SHORT at the American Documentary Film Festival, which qualifies Lotte That Silhouette Girl for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject in 2019
Selected as one of the Hottest Shorts of Hot Docs 2018
MUSIC + SOUND AWARDS 2018 Finalist for Best Original Composition of a Short Film Score
Publicity: Adam Segal / The 2050 Group / 212.642.4317 / [email protected]
Lotte that Silhouette Girl, Directed by Elizabeth Beecherl and Carla Patullo / [email protected] / 310.779.1762
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:
When I first saw one of Lotte Reiniger’s films (it was her 1922 Cinderella), I didn’t immediately realize that she had captured on film one of my favorite experiences. I was just mesmerized, watching in a trance. Much later, after I started making a film about her, I began to understand what drew me in so deeply. It was the experience of listening to folk tales and scary stories around a campfire. It was the moving light, the crackling and popping sounds, and the obscured face and hands of the storyteller moving back and forth out of the darkness and into the light. It’s an ancient artform, and its simplicity works because it ignites our imaginations. Lotte Reiniger’s films do just this. They are magical and beautiful and utterly compelling.
So why hadn’t I heard of her?
She holds two of the most important achievements in animation; she invented the multiplane camera which was revolutionary for animators, and she created the oldest surviving feature length animation! But these achievements are both often mistakenly credited to Walt Disney because unfortunately, the authors of our history books often skew male and American.
So I became a little obsessed with this lady. I kept finding more of her films and bits of information here and there. And then one day, I discovered the most charming interview with Lotte. It was recorded in 1976, and I started a project of mixing musical themes with her voice, and then playing with timing to create a story out of her answers to the interviewer’s questions. A lot more work happened after that, and I couldn’t be happier with the film. One of Lotte’s great old friends, Paul Gelder, said Lotte would have been thrilled with it as well! Which is such a relief to hear because as we made the film, we were constantly asking ourselves what Lotte, our hero in the shadows, would think of it.
‐ Carla Patullo
How did you decide you had to make a film about Lotte?
CARLA: Years ago, I came across one of Lotte’s silent films, ASCHENPUTTEL. I had no idea who she was, and had never seen her work before. I quickly fell in love with her silhouette ballet style, and I decided to re‐conceptualize the Cinderella story and to write a musical, narrative score to it! Working on Lotte's ASCHENPUTTEL was a wonderful experience‐‐I talked about it with you a couple of years ago. And when I took my version of the film out to a few festivals, I was floored to discover that very few people knew who Lotte was. Not even the animation buffs had heard of her! She invented the multiplane camera and she created the oldest surviving feature length animation and her work is drop‐dead gorgeous. I couldn't understand why she was so unknown. So I had to tell her story.
How did you create the animation for this?
CARLA: Elizabeth Beecherl, my co‐director, and I decided to create the film in Lotte's style and use Lotte's own puppets to tell her story because it was an homage to her, and we wanted to pack our film with as much of her presence as possible. Elizabeth is an architect, and she built a multiplane camera similar to the one Lotte invented in 1923 while she was making THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE
Publicity: Adam Segal / The 2050 Group / 212.642.4317 / [email protected]
Lotte that Silhouette Girl, Directed by Elizabeth Beecherl and Carla Patullo / [email protected] / 310.779.1762 ACHMED. Elizabeth also re‐constructed some of Lotte’s original puppets, and we cast them in the roles of Lotte's life story. So for example, Cinderella plays Lotte as a young woman, Prince Achmed plays her husband Carl Koch, and a cast characters follow Lotte around singing and dancing like the Grasshopper, the Ant, and Romeo and Juliet. We used our 2x4 and glass pane multiplane camera and shot frame by frame to start. After shooting, we brought all the footage into After Effects and added modern elements like camera movement and other visual effects. We also incorporated two scenes with live action silhouette dancers, who morphed into and out of the Romeo and Juliet puppets.
How do you think animation has grown since Lotte's day?
CARLA: Well, there are many more advancements in digital technology like 3D sculpting, lighting, depth, and so many more effects. I'm a fan of some of these. You can also make simple animations so much more quickly with some of the software available today. But in no way do I think the animations today are more beautiful or compelling than Lotte's original work. She didn't have sound when she started out so her stories are a bit difficult to follow for modern audiences, but her visual compositions and the intricate and realistic movements of her puppets are breathtaking. Sometimes the speed and complexity that we work with today loses a lot of the imagination and magic that can be found in Lotte's films.
Will you be turning this into a feature?
CARLA: Yes! We are hoping to complete it by the end of this year or early next year.
Do you prefer directing or composing?
CARLA: Well, looking at the big picture, for me, they both do the same thing. They tell stories. And that is what I really love to do. I don't think I could ever direct a film without music. Music is still my primary passion, but pairing music with a story is even better. When we started working on LOTTE THAT SILHOUETTE GIRL, we started with musical sketches and some archival audio first. We told the story through music and dialogue alone, setting a pace and a rhythm. Lotte's films were like ballets, and we wanted a similar feel in our film about her life. Of course, once the visual was locked, I had to go back and re‐configure all of the music in order to match it with the visual. There was a lot of back and forth‐‐ the process was like a dance itself!
You are doing the festival tour now. How are people responding to the film?
CARLA: We just premiered at Ann Arbor, and it was incredible! We were so honored to be included in the festival’s lineup, and we received a great reception from the audience. Several people came up to tell us that we should make a longer version, so that's nice to get the encouragement. I think people are moved by Lotte’s story because she is a charming narrator‐‐very honest and thoughtful. She lived through some difficult times, and many of her dreams did not come true, but she still managed to create a magical body of work, and that inspires people. Oh, and we also won Best U.S. Short at AmDocs!
Congrats! What will you be working on next?
CARLA: Elizabeth and I have a feature film in the works. It's about another artist, and it will have some elements of documentary and animation in it as well. I can't really say too much more than that!
Publicity: Adam Segal / The 2050 Group / 212.642.4317 / [email protected]
Lotte that Silhouette Girl, Directed by Elizabeth Beecherl and Carla Patullo / [email protected] / 310.779.1762 WHO IS LOTTE REINIGER:
No one else has taken a specific animation technique and made it so utterly her own.... To date she has no rivals, and for all practical purposes the history of silhouette animation begins and ends with Reiniger. ‐ Philip Kemp, the BFI
LOTTE REINIGER (1899‐1981) was an animator, an inventor, a storyteller, and a trailblazer. Her unique style inspired many, including modern day filmmakers Henry Selick, Anthony Lucas and many others. Her 1926 film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the oldest surviving feature length animation, and while directing it, she invented the multi‐plane camera, which was a major contribution to the field of animation. Her films are imbued with an unmatched grace and beauty due to her passion for an aesthetic she transformed so distinctly. Lotte once said that animation is “not so much a technical implement as the expression of the spirit behind it.” Sadly, her career was suddenly upended when the Nazi Regime overtook her hometown of Berlin. She was forced to leave in 1936, and she wasn’t able to find a permanent home again until the 50s, and then finally, she and her husband became British citizens in 1961, but despite all of this, she continued making films up until her death in 1981. Her last film was created in front of a live audience in 1980 inside the Dusseldorf Filmmuseum while sitting at her iconic multiplane camera that they still have on exhibit there.
Through her pioneering fusion of silhouette craft with the emerging medium of animation film, Reiniger’s work transforms a handmade form – traditionally practiced by women with no access to formal training – into a distinctly modern and aesthetically radical medium. ‐ Tashi Petter
Publicity: Adam Segal / The 2050 Group / 212.642.4317 / [email protected]
Lotte that Silhouette Girl, Directed by Elizabeth Beecherl and Carla Patullo / [email protected] / 310.779.1762
Elizabeth Beecherl and Carla Patullo work at the multiplane camera they built based on Lotte Reiniger’s original design.
DIRECTORS’ BIOGRAPHIES:
CARLA PATULLO
Also known as White Widow, Carla Patullo is a composer and songwriter with a sound that moves from industrial to lush orchestral and beyond. She has composed scores for many films including Letter to Anita, Choke, Pizza Face, Lotte that Silhouette Girl and Jean Cordova. Patullo has worked on film and TV productions that have won awards such as an Independent Spirit Award, Daytime Emmy Award, a GLAAD Media Award and a BAFTA. Along with scoring and films, Patullo has written numerous songs and has had over 100 song placements on Emmy‐award winning shows like The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Young & the Restless and Skins. Carla was recently selected as a Sundance 2018 Composer Fellow for the Sundance Film Music and Sound Design Lab, and her music is featured in the award‐winning film Spa Night, which premiered at Sundance in 2016. Her scores have won numerous awards, including Global Music Awards, Hollywood Music in Media Award (Carter Burwell, Philip Glass, Diane Warren) nominations, and just this year, a Music and Sound Award nomination. www.carlapatullo.com
ELIZABETH BEECHERL
Born in Lubbock, Texas, Elizabeth Beecherl has worked as an architect for several years on projects that have been published in The New York Times, Dwell, and many other design publications. But after watching Lotte Reiniger’s animations and falling in love with the medium of shadows and silhouettes, she began making films in collaboration with co‐director Carla Patullo.
Publicity: Adam Segal / The 2050 Group / 212.642.4317 / [email protected]
Lotte that Silhouette Girl, Directed by Elizabeth Beecherl and Carla Patullo / [email protected] / 310.779.1762 CAST AND CREW:
Directed by Elizabeth Beecherl and Carla Patullo
Written by Elizabeth Beecherl, Carla Patullo and Jennifer Maisel
Narrated by and starring the puppets of Lotte Reiniger
Also starring Erica Hanrahan‐Ball and Andrew Diego as the silhouette dancers
Music & Sound Design by Carla Patullo
Animation by Elizabeth Beecherl
Animation Department: Sarah Winters, Matthew Yarrington, Nancy Putnam and Meejin Hong
Puppets by Helen Short
Costumes by Allison Dillard
Choreography by Erica Hanrahan‐Ball
Studio Assistant: Julia Maisel‐Berick
Interview audio courtesy of The USC Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive
Special thanks to the Goethe Institute Los Angeles
Vocalists: Erica Hanrahan‐Ball, Carla Patullo, Andrew Diego and Sean Smith
Music mixed by Daniel Kresco
Produced by Trick Studio (Elizabeth Beecherl and Carla Patullo)
FILMMAKER CONTACT:
Publicity: Adam Segal / The 2050 Group / [email protected] / 212.642.4317 Director, Animator: Elizabeth Beecherl / [email protected] / 310.779.1762 Director, Composer: Carla Patullo / [email protected] /310.746.7664
Lotte That Silhouette Girl official website: www.lotte‐movie.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/lottemovie Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lottemovie/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lottemovie/
MORE IMAGES AND TEXT CAN BE FOUND HERE: http://www.lotte‐movie.com/press‐downloads
Publicity: Adam Segal / The 2050 Group / 212.642.4317 / [email protected]
Lotte that Silhouette Girl, Directed by Elizabeth Beecherl and Carla Patullo / [email protected] / 310.779.1762