At the same time as Aschenputtel, Lotte Reiniger made another fairytale film, again based on a Brothers Grimm text: Sleeping Beauty. The ornamental framing of some of the action sequences and the trick fades reveal the creative affinity between both films. Six months after the premiere in Berlin on 23 December 1922, the magazine “Film-Kurier” reported unanimous applause for the silhouette film. A black-and-white export version with Danish intertitles survives today in the archive of Det Danske Filminstitut in Copenhagen. It was distributed at the time by the company Pilotfilm, which also marketed other films by Reiniger in Denmark. Unfortunately, no censorship card could be found, which would have recorded the original German-language wording of the intertitles. A 16mm version with German intertitles has been preserved at the Huntley Film Archive in London. Sadly, this element could not be used for budget reasons. The intertitles, which may have been specially produced by Kinagfa for its home cinema distribution, have been digitally reconstructed and are marked in the restoration as © 2021.

With special thanks to Christel Strobel, Anke Mebold and Thomas Christensen.

Louise Burkart