A documentary about the first female filmmaker, narrated by Jodie Foster.
Having started her career as secretary at Gaumont, Alice Guy-Blaché became one of the first ever filmmakers to shoot narrative fiction films and to use close-ups, hand-tinted color, and synchronized sound. She founded her own studio, and directed and produced a number of successful films, including the 1906 comedy Les Résultats du féminisme (The Consequences of Feminism), in which men and women exchanged roles, and the first narrative film with an entirely African-American cast, at a time when white actors often refused to appear on the lot with black actors.
With Sergei Eisenstein and Alfred Hitchcock among her admirers, Guy-Blaché, who worked in France and the USA, should have been remembered as one of the inventors of cinema along with Thomas Edison, the Lumière brothers, and Georges Méliès. So why isn’t she?
Pamela B. Green’s documentary looks like a remake of Peter Jackson’s mockumentary Forgotten Silver, about an invented film pioneer, but actually tells the story of a real person. A portrait of an amazing woman, the film is also an exciting investigation that traces the story of Alice Guy-Blaché on two continents.
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
Director: Pamela B. Green
USA, 2018, 102 min. 16+