Cecile Starr

The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a French screenwriter, director and producer, true pioneer of cinema, the first person who made a narrative fiction film; author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books. Ignored and forgotten. At last remembered.

Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independent filmmakers captured between 1955 and 1996. Fast-paced and archival in spirit, the film celebrates the avant-garde as its own “nation of cinema,” a vital community existing outside the dominance of commercial film.

This documentary interweaves films and voice recordings by Maya Deren with interviews featuring colleagues and contemporaries who worked with or knew her firsthand. Drawing on archival material and commentary from figures such as Jean Rouch and Jonas Mekas, the film traces Deren’s work and influence across experimental cinema and ethnographic thought.

The astonishing story of the first documentary film school in the USA—The Institute of Film Techniques at The City College of New York. This groundbreaking program exposed thousands of working-class kids raised on Hollywood movies to the power of documentary film - all under the watchful eye of DADAist, pioneering experimental filmmaker and radical thinker, Hans Richter.

Shot on a September afternoon, in 1971, on the lawn and inside the studio of Hans Richter's Connecticut home. The artist talks informally with Cecile Starr about his first experiences as a filmmaker, and about the interrelationship of his films and his paintings, scrolls and collages. Excerpts from Rhythm 21, Ghosts before breakfast and Race symphony help illustrate Richter's comments about how these pioneer avant-garde films were made in the years between 1921 and 1929.

A short documentary tracing the development of magic lanterns. The collection of Nat Myers, Jr. is shown and demonstrations are made of early colorful images and movement patterns. Early toy movie projector are also seen. Narrated, with a music box soundtrack. Includes an excerpt from the Georges Méliès film, The Magic Lantern (1903).