Women's cinema

Women’s cinema is a variety of topics bundled together to create the work of women in film. This can include women filling behind the scene roles such director, cinematographer, writer, and producer while also addressing the stories of women and character development through screenplays.

Women’s cinema recognizes women’s contributions all over the world, not only to narrative films but to documentaries as well. Recognizing the work of woman occurs through various festivals and awards, such as the Sundance Film Festival.

“Women’s cinema is a complex, critical, theoretical, and institutional construction,” Alison Butler explains. The concept has had its fair share of criticisms, causing some female filmmakers to distance themselves from it in fear of be associated with marginalization and ideological controversy.

Alice Guy-Blaché was a film pioneer and likely the first female director. Working for the Gaumont Film Company in France at the time that the cinema was being invented, she created La Fée aux Choux (1896). The dates of many early films are speculative, but La Fée aux Choux may well be the first narrative film ever released. She served as Gaumont's head of production from 1896 to 1906 and ultimately produced hundreds of silent films in France and the United States.

American-born director, Lois Weber was coached and inspired by Guy-Blaché and found success in creating silent films. Weber is well known for her films Hypocrites (1915), The Blot (1921), and Suspense (1913). Weber's films often focus on difficult social issues. For instance, her film Where Are My Children? (1916) addresses the controversial issues of birth control and abortion. And she questioned the validity of capital punishment in The People vs. John Doe (1916).

Mabel Normand was another significant early female filmmaker. She started as an actress and became a producer-writer-director in the 1910s, working on the first shorts Charlie Chaplin did as The Tramp at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios. She further collaborated with Sennett on other Keystone films and, during the late 1910s and early 1920s, she had her own movie studio and production company.

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