Audiences will soon be able to learn more about Alice Guy-Blaché, the first woman filmmaker. According to Deadline, Pamela B. Green’s documentary “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché” has nabbed North American distribution. Zeitgeist Films is giving the film a theatrical run in early 2019, which will be followed by VOD and home video releases from Kino Lorber. “Be Natural” is also in the running for next year’s Best Documentary Oscar.
As Green told us ahead of the film’s premiere at Cannes 2018, “Be Natural” “explores the heights of fame and financial success [Guy-Blaché] achieved before she was shut out from the very industry she helped create.” The director continued, “Guy-Blaché started her career as secretary to Léon Gaumont and, at 23, was inspired to make her first film, ‘La Fée aux Choux’ or, ‘The Cabbage Fairy,’ one of the first narrative films ever made. After her filmmaking career at Gaumont, [1896-1907], she had a second decade-long career in the U.S., where she owned, built, and ran her own studio in Fort Lee, NJ.” “Over the span of her career, she wrote, produced, or directed 1,000 films, including 150 with synchronized sound during the ‘silent’ era,” Green revealed.
Oscar-winning actress-director Jodie Foster narrates “Be Natural.” The doc also features interviews with Guy-Blaché’s daughter, Simone Blaché, Ava DuVernay, Evan Rachel Wood, Catherine Hardwicke, Geena Davis, Julie Taymor, Julie Delpy, and Gale Anne Hurd, among others.
Despite being a pioneering artist — one who blazed trails for all filmmakers, not just women — history has largely overlooked Guy-Blaché. That’s what inspired Green to make “Be Natural.” “I was first moved to begin production on this film as I was watching AMC and discovered a show called ‘Reel Models’ about pioneering women in cinema, including Alice Guy-Blaché. I didn’t go to film school, but I work in the entertainment industry and I was surprised that I had never heard of her,” Green recalled. “I asked several people and I realized that they too had never heard of her. I just kept asking, ‘How could such an important figure in the birth of cinema be unknown?’ It became clear I had to tell her story.”
“We couldn’t be more enthused to begin working on Pamela B. Green’s brilliant film. Alice Guy-Blaché directed over 1,000 films from 1896 to 1920, as well as being one of the only women to manage her own studio during that period, yet she remains relatively unknown. We feel it is our duty and pleasure to help acquaint audiences with this formidable woman,” stated Zeitgeist Films co-founders Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo.
Since making its world premiere at Cannes in May, “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché” has screened at Telluride, Deauville, New York Film Festival, and London Film Festival. Check out the film’s trailer below:
