Balance is a German surrealist stop-motion animated film, released in 1989. It was directed and produced by twin brothers Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein.
A group of fishermen on a precariously balanced platform fight over a trunk.
The setting is on a floating platform where a group of evenly and carefully placed men live. Each man is aware that the platform is not stable and in order not to fall to their deaths, they maintain a careful balance of weight to prevent the platform from tipping too far and cause them all to fall. This reasonably harmonious understanding is lost when one man pulls up a heavy trunk. In the ensuing struggle, balance is lost in more than one sense.
A homeless waif, staggering through a roaring snow storm, wanders into a small town. and no one except a poor shoemaker will give the little boy shelter from the storm. That night, the elves come in with their equipment and material, and make a new supply of shoes for the old man. In the morning, see what has happened, the old man tells the boy he has brought him luck, and can stay with him as his adopted son.
The Adventures of Prince Achmed is a 1926 German animated fairytale film by Lotte Reiniger. It is the oldest surviving animated feature film. The Adventures of Prince Achmed features a silhouette animation technique Reiniger had invented which involved manipulated cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead under a camera. The technique she used for the camera is similar to Wayang shadow puppets, though hers were animated frame by frame, not manipulated in live action. The original prints featured color tinting.
Several famous avant-garde animators worked on this film with Lotte Reiniger, among them Walter Ruttmann, Berthold Bartosch, and Carl Koch.
The story is based on elements taken from the One Thousand and One Nights, specifically “The Story of Prince Achmed and the Fairy Paribanou” featured in Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book.
