bamcinemaFest: The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Part of BAMcinemaFest

Sun, Jul 1 at 6pm

Director: Lotte Reiniger
Music written and performed by Erik Friedlander and 3epkano’s Matthew Nolan and Cameron Doyle in collaboration with Bryan O’Connell and Steve Shannon.

(1926) 65min

“A rapturous animated kaleidoscope with a more abstracted visage of the "1001 Arabians Nights" tale than you could dream, Charlotte Reiniger's Achmed has the scary symmetry of a Rorschach test.” —Wesley Morris, San Francisco Examiner

"Friedlander [is] one of today's most ingenious and forward-thinking musical practitioners." —Billboard

BAMcinematek favorites since their electrifying rock-out performance to G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box in 2007, Irish ambient rock band 3epkano have since returned three times with thrilling scores to F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and Pabst’s Diary of a Lost Girl. 

For this special BAMcinemaFest closing day event, two of 3epkano's founding members are joined by avant-garde cellist Erik Friedlander as they find their muse in the oldest surviving animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Under the influence of Georges Méliès’ special effects, pioneering avant-garde German filmmaker and artist Lotte Reiniger employed silhouettes of cardboard cutouts on illuminated glass to craft this dreamlike homage to The Arabian Nights, in which a prince joins forces with Aladdin and a magic horse to vanquish an army of demons. 

This screening is supported by Culture Ireland