MUSIC + FILM:
THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED
PLUS LIVE SCORE WITH GYAN RILEY
For one night only, NCFF Presents
The Adventures of Prince Achmed
plus live score by Gyan Riley
Friday, October 6, 7pm, at the Nevada Theatre
“Thrilling, sensuous and dazzling, Prince Achmed will amaze and enthrall audiences of all ages.”
“The Adventures of Prince Achmed’s exquisitely crafted visuals are more than matched by its utterly enchanting story.” – Rotten Tomatoes
When The Adventures of Prince Achmed premiered to German audiences in 1926, it was hailed as the first full-length animated film. Taken from the tales known as the Arabian Nights, the film tells the story of a young prince tricked by a wicked sorcerer into mounting a magical, flying horse for a direct course to his own demise.
Soaring headlong into a series of wondrous adventures, and joining forces with the likes of Aladdin and a fabled witch, the prince evades his fate by saving a beautiful princess and doing battle with the sorcerer’s army of monsters. The Adventures of Prince Achmed was created by German filmmaker Lotte Reiniger, who pioneered the technique of silhouette animation – using intricate cut-out shadow puppets shot frame-by-frame against thin sheets of lead – a method she used to create over 40 fairy-tale films.
This cinematic treasure has been beautifully restored with color tinting and on Friday, October 6 it will be accompanied by an original score performed live by composer and multi-instrumentalist Gyan Riley.
Gyan Riley, who grew up in Nevada County, has been called by the New York Times, “a one-man American-music machine, amicably ranging across the fields of jazz, world music, and post-minimalism.” He has extensively toured internationally both as a soloist and with artists such as Julian Lage, Bill Frisell, his father Terry Riley, and Grammy-winning singer Arooj Aftab. Riley has released six albums and dozens of collaborative recordings. He has performed with Lou Reed, the San Francisco Symphony, John Zorn, Kronos Quartet, and the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, to name a few. Recently he was featured as a performer and composer for two acclaimed PBS documentary series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick: Hemingway, and The U.S. and the Holocaust. He is currently engaged as the 2023 composer in residence at the Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree.