Lights! Camera! Alice!

The Thrilling True Adventures
of the First Woman Filmmaker 

Chronicle Books
(pub. 9.11.2018)
60 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Mara Rockliff
    and illustrator: Simona Ciraolo

C haracters: Alice Guy-Blache

O verview from the jacket flap: 
     "Mara Rockliff and Simona Ciraolo tell the story of one of film's pioneers - and the first woman in the world to make movies. Driven by her passion for storytelling, Alice saw a potential for film that others had not seen before, allowing her to develop new narratives, new camera angles, new techniques, and to surprise her audiences again and again. With daring and vision, Alice Guy-Blache introduced the world to a thrilling frontier of imagination and adventure, and became one of filmmaking's first and greatest innovators."

T antalizing taste: 
     

     "IMAGINATION  
      Alice found more and more ways to surprise her audience.
      Run the film backward, and voila! Falling down turned into flying up.
      Stop the camera to move a hat - up here, down there, now over there! - and onscreen, the hat would dance along the streets and rooftops as if it had been bewitched. 
      Alice's movies came alive with color ... and sound - the very first 'talking pictures'!"

      
and something more: The "Director's Cut" at the back of the book explains that between "1896 and 1920, Alice made over seven hundred movies, and her studio, Solax, produced hundreds more. She truly earned the title 'Mother of the Movies'... As a woman, Alice always had to fight for recognition of her talent and hard work... To set the record straight, Alice wrote her life story. Nobody would publish it... The Memoirs of Alice Guy Blache... finally were published in America in 1986. And since the 1990s, Alice has found a place in standard histories of film - though, compared to men who worked in film at the same time, she remains little known. Today, when female film directors are still rare, there is a growing interest in the active part women played in early film. Slowly, Alice's lost films are being rediscovered - and, along with them, Alice." 

    During Alice's lifetime, at the age of about 80, she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the highest award in France.