Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky on AllMovie

Though largely forgotten today, Berlin's Skladanowsky Brothers have a place in cinematic history, one they earned in early November, 1895 when they premiered on stage with an exciting series of eight brief shadow plays that were comprised of eight film loops projected onto a large screen. They did this over a month before the Lumiere Brothers dazzled Paris with their motion picture system. German filmmaker Wim Wenders -- who was teaching at a Munich film school -- and his class play tribute to the Skladanowsky's contribution in this light-hearted, old-fashioned largely silent film. Seeking to recapture the feeling of an early, early film, Wenders had students shoot it using an authentic hand-cranked camera. Over a two-year period, he and his class expanded upon the film, adding an organ soundtrack and voice-over narration. The finished version also contains an interview with Lucie, the over-90-year-old daughter of Max Skladanowsky, the actual inventor of the loop process (seven of the original eight loops still exist and were shown when A Trick of the Light premiered in Los Angeles).