Reel Jersey Girls Film Program: The Lost Garden

Film screening of The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy Blache is a centennial tribute to the first woman film director, Alice Guy Blache on Friday, May 4 at 8 p.m. at the Visitor Center of Fort Lee Historic Park. Introduction by Christina Kotlar, filmmaker and Film Festival reViews writer/blogger. This Reel Jersey Girls Film Program event is sponsored by the Fort Lee Film Commission.

The documentary is about one of early cinema’s most fearless pioneers, Alice Guy Blache, arguably, the first narrative filmmaker in the world. She made her first film at the end of the last century in France in the 1890s. She went on to found her own successful production company, Solax in Fort Lee, New Jersey in 1912 producing and writing nearly 1,000 films. The Lost Garden looks at the life and times of a woman who changed the art of screen acting forever and forged ahead in a world filled with new technology.  Television interviews from the 1960s reveal  Madame Blaché to be witty, articulate and elegant. The film written and directed by Canadian filmmaker, Marquise Lepage made the rounds of the international festival circuit and picked up several awards, including a Gémeaux (Montreal) for Best Documentary. The National Film Board of Canada produced this film that makes it back to the screen in time for cinema’s one hundredth anniversary.

This is a free program with no advanced registration required. Historic Park entrance is on Hudson Terrace immediately south of George Washington Bridge. Directions to Fort Lee Historic Park.