Past screening

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché

Directed by: Pamela B. Green
Runtime: 1hr 43min Year: 2018
Watch trailer

Details

Directed by: Pamela B. Green
Runtime: 1hr 43min Year: 2018
Country: United States
Last Screened: Mon 10th Feb 2020

Pamela B. Green hits the road in search of one of cinema’s most prolific pioneers: Alice Guy-Blaché. Having founded successful film studios in both France and the US and made more than 1000 films.

Alice Guy-Blaché was a prolific filmmaker and a cinematic pioneer, yet she has largely been erased from the history books. In this entertaining and enlightening documentary, Pamela B. Green goes on an eventful journey to discover the astonishing scope of Guy-Blaché’s career, and probe just why she has been forgotten.

In a remarkably short period of time in the early 1900s, Guy-Blaché rose from a secretary to running a leading film studio in her native France. She was one of the very first to make a narrative film, and pioneered the use of close ups, hand-tinted colour and synchronised sound. When she emigrated to the US she began all over again, setting up the prolific Solax Studios in New Jersey.

In her quest to unearth everything she can about Guy-Blaché’s remarkable life, Green interviews 90 filmmakers and historians, and criss-crosses the US, procuring a wealth or artifacts and anecdotes from Guy-Blaché’s descendants.