We are pleased to announce that Shine Global’s Executive Director Susan MacLaury is the 2013 recipient of the Alice Guy-Blaché Award presented by the Fort Lee Film Commission. Considered one of the most prestigious awards in New Jersey filmmaking, the Alice Guy-Blaché Award honors the pioneering first women director and New Jersey resident Alice Guy-Blaché. The award is given to women who have made a significant mark on the industry and advanced the art of flimmaking. Past recipients include actresses Parker Posey and Lee Grant, Director Guild of Americas Vice President Gary Donatelli, and Diane Raver. Susan is honored to join their ranks.
A pioneer in the film industry, Alice Guy-Blaché produced, wrote and directed hundreds of films at her Solax Studio in Fort Lee from 1912 through World War I, all before women in the United States had the right to vote. Early in her career she became the first filmmaker to develop narrative filmmaking. Alice also pioneered in the area of synchronized sound film with the Chornophone system as early as 1902. When she passed away at the age of 94 in 1968 there were only four surviving prints of the many films she directed. Today there are 140 Alice Guy-Blaché directed films that have been discovered in archives around the world. This still amounts to only a fraction of Alice’s work but it does give us a glimpse at the work of not only the first woman director in cinema history but a film pioneer whose career blazed a trail for all future filmmakers.
The presentation will be made as part of the Fort Lee Film Commission panel Reel Jersey Girls: Working in Film at the 2013 Garden State Film Festival in Asbury Park, NJ on April 6th at 2:30 PM at Stella Marina Restaurant, 800 Ocean Avenue in Asbury Park. This esteemed panel of women working in all jobs around film, from animators, to directors, from writers to producers will offer abundant information on the state of filmmaking in New Jersey and around the globe. Get your tickets by clicking here.
To learn more about Alice Guy-Blaché read this article by Fort Lee Film Commission Executive Director Tom Meyers.