Connecting Standard:  AP World History

Period 6.3:  New Conceptualizations of Global Economy, Society and Culture

  Born 1873/Died 1968

Profile from Women Film Pioneers Project

Overlooked No More  New York Times Obituary

• Has pictures from her life and is not too dense providing information and overview of her life.

Achievements

•  From 1896 to 1906, she was probably the only woman film director in the world.

•  One of the first, perhaps THE FIRST, to make a narrative film.

• One of the first movie executives.
•  She founded one of the first film studios in the United States.

• She created over 150 of the first films with synchronized sound.

The World's First Female Filmmaker Wrote, Directed and Produced over 700 Films

• Highlights more of her personal life, she married and had children and still thrived as a businesswoman.

Image by Qui Gao (April 2022) 

 Alice Guy-Blache, Forgotten Film Pioneer

Lights! Camera! Alice!: The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman Filmmaker

• NCSS Notable Trade Book about the life of Alice Guy-Blache

Be Natural:  The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache 

• The trailer of a documentary is brief, and therefore can reveal all Guy-Blache accomplished (1000 films she wrote and directed), before the discussion examines how she is forgotten.

• It is a fast-moving clip and therefore can keep the students engaged before they do some hands-on learning - this source touches upon her persistence and never-ending creativity showing that she made countless films and ultimately started her own company which simply wasn’t done by women at that time

Films by Alice Guy-Blache

Matrimony's Speed Limit (1913)

Click here to see her Oldest Surviving Film, La Fee Aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy)

• Based on a French folktale about a woman who grows children out of cabbage.

Image is a still from the film Two Little Rangers (1912)

443 Film Credits from Internet Movie Database

The Films of Alice Guy-Blache:  The First Female Director and Cinematic Trailblazer

• Has an video biography narrated by Jodie Foster

• Includes a link to The Birth, The Life and The Death of Christ (1906)
  

Watch 1150 Free Movies Online:  Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns from Open Culture

 Learning Activities

Learn about Film

• Have students make their own narrative or fiction film with i-pads if available or just have them make scripts and act out if not

• These sources can help them decide how they wish to approach this task and maybe they can watch one of Guy-Blache’s shorter films to get an idea for the work they are emulating. Having students hands-on engage with what Guy-Blache is famous for will convince them of her value beyond any of these other sources.  This is such an incredibly common means of film today and this is the woman who thought it up, was inspired, and directed it. She was a pioneer.