First Among Women: Alice Guy-Blach?

Thursday, November 14 at 7:00 p.m. - With newly composed and recorded scores by Liz Magnes, Carolyn Swartz, Meg Morley, Andrew Simpson, and Eunice Martins.

Running time 1h 16min

Alice Guy-Blach? was an incomparable trailblazer. From 1896 to 1906, she was probably the only woman film director in the world, and she was the first director of any gender to make a narrative fiction film. Working her way up from secretary to L?on Gaumont, she led Gaumont Chronophone for a decade and later owned her own production company, Solax. Her essential films address themes of race, sexuality, and women's empowerment, among others.

The program includes:

Algie the Miner (1912) | 10 min | A foppish dandy goes West, kissing the cowboys while proving he's as tough as any of them, in this early example of queer cinema.

The Little Rangers (1912) | 12 min | Two heroic women nab a villain in this rousing, proto-feminist western.

A Fool and His Money (1912) | 12 min | The oldest known film to feature an all-black cast, this comic short is a vital historical record of the African-American image on celluloid.

Mixed Pets (1911) | 14 min | In Guy-Blach?'s earliest surviving U.S. work, misunderstandings arise when a new husband refuses to buy his new wife a dog and the couple's domestic help conceal the fact they are married with a baby, and everyone tries to hide their adored 'pets.'

Fallen Leaves (1912) | 12 min | A young girl worries about her older sister, who has taken ill with consumption.

Matrimony's Speed Limit (1915) | 14 min | A young man has 12 minutes to marry if he hopes to inherit a fortune in this antic farce, which reveals race, class, and gender concerns of American society at the time.