Wed, Aug 14 / 7 pm
Thu & Fri, Aug 15 & 16 / 9:15 pm
Sat, Aug 17 / 5 pm & 9:15 pm
Sun Aug 18 / 3 pm
Wed, Aug 21 / 9 pm
Directed by Pamela Green
2018, USA, 103 min
How could Alice Guy-Blaché, a contemporary of Edison, the Lumieres, and Melies, who wrote, directed or produced a thousand films and had a career longer than any of them, reach the heights of fame in France and financial success and then be forgotten? Narrated by Jodie Foster, this is the story of the first female filmmaker who was shut out from the very industry she helped create. Alice Guy-Blaché was a prolific filmmaker working in nearly every genre who tackled groundbreaking subject matter such as child abuse and female empowerment. She also etched a place in history by making the earliest known surviving narrative film with an all-black cast. Interviewing everyone from Agnes Varda to Walter Murch, Green has dedicated more than eight years of research in order to discover the real story of Guy-Blaché (1873-1968) – not only highlighting her pioneering contributions to the birth of cinema but also her acclaim as a creative force and entrepreneur in the earliest years of movie-making.
Plays with: Camera Test / Directed by Joyce Wong, 2019, Canada, 5 min / What gets lost when female voices are stymied during the creative process? Pairing intimate interviews with absurdist re-enactments, Joyce Wong crafts a tartly subversive look at patriarchy and racism in the film industry. Camera Test was created for the newly updated NFB film program Five Feminist Minutes.
PLEASE NOTE: On Sunday, August 18 at 5 pm there will be an afternoon screening of Alice Guy Blache’s shorts. This program includes many restored films of her best work including A Fool and His Money (1912) Alice Guy-Blaché’s first film with an all African-American cast, Her 1916 film The Ocean Waif in which a young woman (played by the talented Doris Kenyon) escapes her abusive guardian and finds safety in an empty house and the short film Falling Leaves.
