The Cabbage Fairy (1900). 1 minute. Written and directed by Alice Guy-Blaché. Starring Yvonne Sérand (as the fairy).
The Cabbage Fairy is a short film by Alice Guy-Blaché, the world’s first female filmmaker. Originally based out of Paris and employed by the Gaumont Film Company (where she developed the Gaumont house style), Guy-Blaché worked as a director, producer, writer, and editor between 1896 and 1920, making approximately 1,000 (mostly silent) films during this period, of which 150 survive. Eventually she relocated to Fort Lee, New Jersey where she founded the Solax film studio in 1910, a time when films were exploding in popularity.
Many of her films are considered to be lost or else are not adequately documented, and Guy-Blaché herself has often been neglected as the pioneer that she was, with many of her films being misattributed to other, male filmmakers. Her work was a major influence on directors Alfred Hitchcock and Sergei Eisenstein (among others), and paved the … Read the rest