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ALICE GUY: A FORGOTTEN FILM PIONEER
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Alice Ida Antoinette Guy-Blaché (née Guy; July 1, 1873 - March 24, 1968) was a French pioneer filmmaker, active from the late 19th century, and one of the first to make a narrative fiction film.[2] She was the first woman to direct a film. From 1896 to 1906, she was probably the only female filmmaker in the world.[3] She experimented with Gaumont's Chronophone sync-sound system, and with color-tinting, interracial casting, and special effects.[4]
She was artistic director and a co-founder of Solax Studios in Flushing, New York. In 1912, Solax invested 0,000 for a new studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the center of American filmmaking prior to the establishment of Hollywood. That year, she made the film A Fool and His Money, probably the first to have an all-African-American cast. The film is now at the National Center for Film and Video Preservation at the American Film Institute.[5]
n 1865,[6] Alice's father, Emile Guy, an owner of a bookstore and publishing company in Santiago, Chile and Valparaíso, Chile, married Marie Clotilde Franceline Aubert. The couple returned to Santiago after the wedding in Paris. In early 1873, Marie and Emile lived in Santiago, with Alice's four siblings.[citation needed]
There was a devastating smallpox epidemic in Chile in 1872 and 1873.[7] Emile and Marie Guy brought all four of their children back to Paris, where Alice was born. In her autobiography, Alice refers to this as her mother's attempt to make sure "one of her children should be French".[citation needed] Her father returned to Chile soon after her birth, and her mother followed a few months later. Alice was entrusted to her grandmother in Carouge, Switzerland.[8] At the age of three or four, Alice's mother returned from Chile and took Alice back to South America.[citation needed]
At the age of six, Alice was taken back to France by her father to attend school at the Convent of the Sacred Heart (also known as the Faithful Companions of Jesus) on the French side of the Swiss border in Veyrier, France (arrondissement of Viry). (Her sisters were already there.) Alice and her sister Rose were moved to a convent in Ferney a few years later and then brought back to Paris.[citation needed]
Alice's father died on January 5, 1891 of unknown causes.[9] Following his death, Alice trained as a typist and stenographer, a new field at the time, to support herself and her widowed mother. She landed her first stenography-typist job at a varnish factory. In March 1894, she began working at the 'Comptoir général de la photographie' owned by Felix-Max Richard. Léon Gaumont later took over and headed the company.[10][11]
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