Alice Guy-Blaché
Also Known As: Alice Guy Blaché, Alice Blaché, Madame Alice Blaché, Alice Guy-Blache , Alice Blache, Alice Guy Blache, Alice Guy
Biography: Alice Guy-Blaché (July 1, 1873 – March 24, 1968) is generally considered to be the world's first female director. French-born Alice Guy entered the film business as a secretary at Gaumont-Paris in 1896. The next year Gaumont changed from manufacturing cameras to producing movies, and Guy became one of its first film directors. She impressed the company so much with the output (she averaged two two-reelers a week) and quality of her productions that by 1905 she was made the company's production director, supervising the company's other directors. In 1907 she married Herbert Blaché, an Englishman who ran the company's British and German offices. The pair soon went to the U.S. to set up the company's operations there. In 1910 she set up her own production company in New York and built a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After a period of critical and financial success, her company's fortunes declined and she eventually shut down the studio. Although she secured work directing films for several major Hollywood studios, she returned to France in 1922 after her divorce from Blache. She was never able to secure any directorial jobs there, and never made a film again. In 1964 she returned to the U.S. and lived in Mahwah, New Jersey - not far from where her original studios were - with her daughters, where she died in 1968.
Department: Directing
Place of Birth: Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, France
Adult: No
Birthday: July 01, 1873
Age: 151 years old
Gender: Female
Deathday: March 24, 1968
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Known For:

Alice Guy, the First Female Filmmaker

Overview: Who, apart from moviegoers, knows Alice Guy (1873-1968) today? However, she was the first woman behind the camera and the first female director and producer of fiction films in history.
Genres: Documentary History TV Movie
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2021-11-20
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The Cabbage-Patch Fairy

Overview: A brief fantasy tale involving a strange fairy who can produce and deliver babies coming out of cabbages. This film is lost or never existed. Copies of it online are actually the 1900 remake.
Genres: Fantasy Family
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1896-03-31
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Spain

Overview: This is a compilation of some of the films that Alice Guy filmed in Spain from mid-October to the end of November, 1905 (catalogue numbers 1371 to 1384) that were individually released in early 1906.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1905-08-17
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Alice Guy Films a 'Phonoscène' in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris

Overview: Behind-the-scenes footage showing Alice Guy directing an early sound film.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1907-01-09
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Animated Portrait Shot by L and A Lumière

Overview: An early Kinora demonstration film.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: xx
Release Date: 1895-12-31
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Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché

Overview: The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a French screenwriter, director and producer, true pioneer of cinema, the first person who made a narrative fiction film; author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books. Ignored and forgotten. At last remembered.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2018-12-07
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The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy-Blaché

Overview: A biodoc about the first female filmmaker and her relative disappearance from the history of cinema.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-01-01
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The Women Who Run Hollywood

Overview: The first talkie was directed by Alice Guy, the first color film was produced by Lois Weber, who directed more than 300 films over 10 years. Frances Marion wrote screenplays for the Hollywood Star Mary Pickford and won two Oscars, Dorothy Arzner was the most powerful film director in Hollywood. And what do all of them have in common? They are all women and they have all been forgotten. Incredibly, it also took until 2010 for the first woman, Kathryn Bigelow, to win the Oscar for Best Director. Even if underrepresented women have always played a big part in Hollywood and it is this part of the film history left untold that this documentary sets out to uncover.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2016-05-16
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Mireille

Overview: "Mireille" was filmed at the end of May, 1906, by a small team including Alice Guy, Herbert Blaché, Louis Feuillade and Yvonne Mugnier-Serand at the estate of the Marquis Folco de Baroncelli-Javon in Camargue, during their visit to Nîmes to attend the Gran Corrida organized by the local press association. Ultimately, the film never saw the light of day due to technical problems. (Maurice Gianati et Laurent Mannoni (dir.), Alice Guy, Léon Gaumont et les débuts du film sonore, New Barnet, John Libbey Publishing, 2012, p. 45).
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1906-05-28
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A Solax Celebration

Overview: The good people of the Solax community realize that they have cause to make merry before the New Year because the Almighty has guided their breadwinning footsteps toward the Solax Studio's happy atmosphere, bank together like the big happy family they are, to give expression to their happiness in the form of a gift to the immediate cause of their good fortune and sunshine.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-01-01
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