ACTON FILM CLUB PRESENTS: BE NATURAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ALICE GUY-BLACHÉ + LIVE Q&A

Together with the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/actonfilmclub">Acton Film Club</a>, we are participating in The Festival of Community Cinema, a nationwide festival that celebrates 100 years since the founding of the first film society! Tickets are only £3.00 for <a href="https://www.actonecinema.co.uk/membership">Standard and Plus members</a> and £3.60 for everyone else! After the screening, we'll be welcoming author, critic and film historian Pamela Hutchinson for a Q&A on Alice Guy-Blaché! The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a hugely important pioneer of early cinema, the first woman to direct a feature film, author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books... Ignored and forgotten. She was a figure admired by Sergei Eisenstein and Alfred Hitchcock, a prolific director, screenwriter, producer and pioneering studio chief who helped invent modern movie-making. The notice ‘Be Natural’ on the wall of her studio in New Jersey was a testament to her belief that, however stylised and generic, acting and films in general should not be over-the-top, but rooted in reality. Narrated by its producer Jodie Foster, the film investigates the full scope of the life and work of cinema's first female director, whose story reflects the similarly overlooked history of early cinema's female artists. The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/actonfilmclub">Acton Film Club</a> was started in August 2009 by Mark Mason and Nick Jones after many discussions and many pints. Since then, they have screened a film every month, each preceded by a short introduction from Nick. Pamela Hutchinson is an author, critic, curator and film historian. After 13 years on staff at the Guardian, she went freelance in summer 2016 and is currently based in West Sussex. Her publications include two monographs as part of the BFI Film Classics series: one on The Red Shoes, published in 2023, another on Pandora’s Box, published in November 2017. She also edited 30-Second Cinema, published in March 2019. She has contributed chapters to several more edited collections. You can read a full list <a href="https://pamhutch.wordpress.com/publications/">here</a>. Pamela is a columnist at Sight & Sound, and the founder-editor of silent cinema website <a href="https://silentlondon.co.uk/">Silent London</a>. Her areas of interest and research include silent and classic cinema, women’s film history, feminist film history, Hollywood and stardom.DocumentaryPT2H20MPG2025-11-06
Jodie Foster
Richard Abel
Marc Abraham
Pamela B. Green
Pamela B. Green
ACTON FILM CLUB PRESENTS: BE NATURAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ALICE GUY-BLACHÉ + LIVE Q&A"ACTON FILM CLUB PRESENTS: BE NATURAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ALICE GUY-BLACHÉ + LIVE Q&A"

Showtimes

November 6, 5:30 pm

ActOne Cinema - Independent Crowdfunded Community Cinema