Alice Guy-Blaché

By Aizah Ali

Alice Guy-Blanché was born on July 1st, 1973, in Saint-Mandé, Paris, France. She grew up traveling between Chile and France. During her childhood, her family faced many tragedies that led to her looking for employment to support her family. In 1894, she began working as a secretary for Léon Gaumont, an inventor and manufacturer of motion-picture cameras. Gaumont made short films to market his cameras, but GuyBlanché believed the movie could be better. Gaumont allowed her to work with the cameras, leading to the creation of her first short film and the first narrative film, “La Fée aux Choux” (“The Cabbage Fairy”), and her debut as the world’s first female director and filmmaker in 1896.

Following Guy-Blanché’s debut, Gaumont appointed her as his company’s film production head. She spent the next decade supervising and directing hundreds of films and created a studio system years before the development of Hollywood. Since the film industry was not idealized by men, Guy-Blanché and other women had endless opportunities to work in film and represent themselves without the influence or restraints of gender roles at that time. This led to Guy-Blanché being able to open the Solax Company. She made great strides at Solax, making movies that discussed complex topics and showed diversity within a narrative, opening a state-of-the-art studio in New Jersey, and developing the film industry.

As the film industry gained more popularity with men, women started to lose control of the industry and their jobs. More production companies began to open up, leading to the Solax Company’s loss of revenue and eventual bankruptcy. She was facing struggles in her personal life and could not find work in film because the business was no longer hospitable to women who were looking to make their own films. She passed away on March 24th, 1968, at the age of 94, leaving a legacy for her kids and the film industry