A silent film evening we'll never forget! The Adventures of Prince Achmed
The city is in a state of emergency; the HFG’s only air-conditioned refuge is our little movie theater, and the rest of Karlsruhe’s residents are packed like frozen sardines in the hallways of the ZKM. The German Mediterranean still has to get used to a constant 40 degrees in the shade. What better time to venture a refreshingly wintry look back?
In case you’ve already forgotten amid the many highlights of our summer semester program and the open-air event: The Blaue Salon kicked off the new year with a silent film evening that brought film history and the present into collision, breaking all records with over 130 attendees.
On flickering 16-mm film from our own archive, we screened Lotte Reiniger’s “The Adventures of Prince Achmed,” made in 1926, one of the very first feature-length animated films ever! As if this marvel of paper cutouts, color, and imagination weren’t enough, it was accompanied live by Andres Kaufmes and Tim Offenhäußer, who used coding and modular synthesizers to create an ever-changing soundscape. An improvised soundtrack full of noise, rhythm, and unexpected breaks. Somewhere between controlled chaos and a hypnotic pull.
Since none of you could get enough of it, we had to make plenty of room, and not just for those festive bellies. With doors wide open and chairs in every corner, we tried to let you all be part of our grand spectacle, but the line in the atrium just wouldn’t get any shorter. A first for the Blaue Salon: an unplanned, sold-out double performance!!! The KIBS team and our fantastic musicians showed remarkable stamina and were already working up quite a sweat in January.
Thank you to our amazing audience for this evening that made history in so many ways!
