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Less than two years after joining France Televisions, former Canal Plus executive Manuel Alduy has contributed to bolstering the French public broadcaster’s roster of international series with shows such as “Bardot,” a mini-series biopic of Brigitte Bardot, and “L’Insoumise” about Alice Guy, the first female filmmaker ever.

Ahead of France Televisions’ press conference at Series Mania, Alduy said the broadcaster’s first-look initiative with the European Broadcasting Union (Ebu) has yielded several prestige projects, including “Bardot.” The Ebu represents 113 organizations across the 56 countries, including the BBC in the U.K., Ard in Germany, Dr in Denmark, Svt in Sweden, Rai in Italy and the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.

“Bardot” charts the life of the French actor and model from 1949, when she first appeared on the cover of a magazine, to the birth of her son in 1960. It’s being produced by Federation Entertainment with France Televisions in France, and...

Cohen Film Collection is gearing up for a number of newly restored releases, among them Simon Callow’s 1991 drama “The Ballad of the Sad Café” and a number of Buster Keaton works.

Part of New York-based Cohen Media Group, Cohen Film Collection restores classic films and re-releases them theatrically. It’s vast catalogue includes the Merchant Ivory collection, of which “The Ballad of the Sad Café” is a part.

Based on the 1951 novella by Carson McCullers, the film stars Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine and Rod Steiger.

The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, is currently finishing the restoration of the film, which Cohen Film Group plans to release next year.

“There’s still a number of features to go, so we’re working our way through those, including some of the films set in India, which I’m personally really interested in,” says Tim Lanza, Cohen Film Collection vice president and archivist.

Wild Bunch TV, 68productions team on new production with agent Jeff Berg.

French director Jean-Jacques Annaud is set to direct an international drama series about pioneer filmmaker Alice Guy, the first woman to direct a fiction film in the late 1890s who then went on to set up one of the first studios in the Us.

Paris-based Wild Bunch TV and 68Productions and talent agent Jeff Berg are partnering on the series, adapted from the 2015 autobiography Alice Guy by French writer Emmanuelle Gaume.

It will be the second foray into TV for Wolf Totem and The Name Of The Rose...

Wild Bunch TV, 68productions team on new production with agent Jeff Berg.

French director Jean-Jacques Annaud is set to direct an international drama series about pioneer filmmaker Alice Guy, the first woman to direct a fiction film in the late1890s who then went to set up one of the first studios in the Us.

Paris-based Wild Bunch TV and 68Productions and talent agent Jeff Berg are partnering on the series, adapted from the 2015 autobiography Alice Guy by French writer Emmanuelle Gaume.

It will the second foray into TV for Wolf Totem and The Name Of The Rose director Annaud...

How does someone like Alice Guy-Blaché become forgotten in time? Director Pamela B. Green answers this question while doing her damnedest to rectify the error in the arresting documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché. Narrated by Jodie Foster and featuring interview snippets from a slew of impressive female filmmakers, many learn about Alice Guy for the first time (!) while others express a limited knowledge of her accomplishments.

Born in 1873, young Alice Guy split her young life between Chile and France, eventually becoming a typist to support her family after her father’s death. She would find a solid gig at Gaumont in the 1890s as a secretary, working directly with those who were experimenting with motion pictures. Green highlights that Guy was there at the “surprise” screening at which the Lumière Brothers presented La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory) in 1895. Inspired by all of this,...

Academy Award Submission for Best Feature Documentary: ‘Be Natural: The Untold Story Of Alice Guy-Blaché’by Peter Belsito and Sydney Levine‘Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché’ deserves much more attention as her real life story was, and still is, a history-changer.

Filmmaker Pamela B. Green’s Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché is a timely, exhilarating rediscovery of a forgotten woman. Guy-Blaché, who made her initial film in 1896 Paris, was not only the first female filmmaker, but one of the first directors to make a narrative film. Be Natural follows her rise from Gaumont secretary to her appointment as head of production at Gaumont a year later, then her career in France and the United States as a writer, director, and/or producer of 1,000 films, both feature-length and shorts, as well as the founder of her own studio. An earlier cut of the film premiered...

The Cannes Film Festival’s Jury President Cate Blanchett and the Camera d’Or Jury President Ursula Meier put on a good front for the festival but still, Competition had only three out of 21 films directed by women while Un Certain Regard had eight out of 18 (44%) and Short Films in Competition had two out of eight (25%). Cinefondation had eight of 17 shorts (47%) by women; Critics’ Week four out of seven (57%) while Critics’ Week Shorts had three out of ten (30%). Directors’ Fortnight had five out of 20 (25%) and Directors’ Fortnight Shorts had four out of 11 (36%).International key women players of the film industry — directors, crew members, actresses, producers, screenwriters, sales agents, distributors, talent agents, editors — climbed the steps of the Cannes Film Festival.

Among them, Cate Blanchett and Agnès Varda read a collective statement.

Of the eight Special Screenings of the festival none was by a woman. Cannes Classics showed six out of 33 (18%) by women.

There’s an alarming degree of disingenuousness, or perhaps merely naiveté, permeating “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.” To begin with, there’s that title, “The Untold Story,” which ignores a number of earlier documentaries not to mention the significant amount of scholarship on pioneering filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché. Also omitted is any mention of the 2009 Gaumont and Kino DVD box sets that made 66 of her films available. These are what can be called inconvenient truths, for Pamela B. Green, director of “Be Natural,” is on a mission to discover why — supposedly — no one has ever heard of Alice Guy-Blaché.

As Green tells it, the reason is pure and simple: Because she was a woman, Guy-Blaché was written out of the history books. That’s not entirely wrong. Alice Guy, as she was then known, was present at the very start of the film industry and played a crucial...

If you ask most people familiar with the history of film to name some of the early trailblazers, you’re bound to hear Georges Méliès and the Lumière Brothers quite a few times. As for Alice Guy-Blaché? Well, even if she is mentioned, her name will reoccur far less than her male contemporaries, despite the fact that she is just as influential, if not more so.

Read More: 18 Films Made by Women, Starring Women, That We Absolutely Love

An informative new video essay from Catherine Stratton has been released via Fandor to celebrate Women’s History Month, and it walks viewers through the history of Alice Guy-Blaché’s essential contributions to film. Her 1896 film “The Cabbage Fairy” is largely credited as one of the first narrative features ever made, produced and shot at a time when filmmakers like the Lumière Brothers were simply capturing scenes of every day life.

Between 1896 and 1920, Guy-Blaché wrote,...

Claudette Colbert, Alla Nazimova, Marion Davies, Charles Boyer: Cinecon 2011 Thursday September 1 (photo: Alla Nazimova) 7:00 Hollywood Rhythm (1934) 7:10 Welcoming Remarks 7:15 Hollywood Story (1951) 77 min. Richard Conte, Julie Adams, Richard Egan. Dir: William Castle. 8:35 Q & A with Julie Adams 9:10 Blazing Days (1927) 60 min. Fred Humes. Dir: William Wyler. 10:20 In The Sweet Pie And Pie (1941) 18 min 10:40 She Had To Eat (1937) 75 min. Jack Haley, Rochelle Hudson, Eugene Pallette. Friday September 2 9:00 Signing Off (1936) 9:20 Moon Over Her Shoulder (1941) 68 min. Dan Dailey, Lynn Bari, John Sutton, Alan Mowbray. 10:40 The Active Life Of Dolly Of The Dailies (1914) 15 min. Mary Fuller. 10:55 Stronger Than Death (1920) 80 min. Alla Nazimova, Charles Bryant. Dir: Herbert Blaché, Charles Bryant, Robert Z. Leonard. 12:15 Lunch Break 1:45 Open Track (1916) 2:00 On The Night Stage (1915) 60 min. William S. Hart, Rhea Mitchell. Dir: Reginald Barker. 3:15 50 Miles From Broadway (1929) 23 min 3:45 Cinerama Adventure (2002). Dir: David Strohmaier. 5:18 Discussion...

Director Allan Dwan, actor George O'Brien, cinematographer George Webber, East Side, West Side Are you a movie lover in Los Angeles, unable to travel either to Venice or Telluride? Don't despair. L.A. has its own glamorous film festival this weekend. It's called Cinecon, now in its 47th year. What's more: unlike the vast majority of movies screening at the more highly publicized Venice and Telluride — which will shortly be made available at theaters, DVD stores, or online streaming services — most Cinecon movies are nearly impossible to be seen anywhere else. In other words, it's September 1-5 at the Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at Grauman's Egyptian on Hollywood Boulevard or (quite possibly) never. [Cinecon 2011 Schedule.] This year's Cinecon rarities includes the following: The first Los Angeles area screening in eight decades of Allan Dwan's East Side, West Side (1927), a risque silent drama starring Sunrise's George O'Brien and Virginia Valli, the...

The French insistence on regarding cinema as art has helped produced formidable women directors. But is the next generation the most wide-ranging yet?

There's a feeling out there that France may be on the verge of another new wave: not of the politically radical 1950s kind, but one in which young, driven, women film-makers will be at the fore. Names being mentioned are Mia Hansen-Løve, Rebecca Zlotowski and Katell Quillévéré; their films have already electrified France and are beginning to spread elsewhere.

Of course, on one level, there is nothing unusual about French women film directors. From Agnès Varda to Claire Denis, Coline Serreau to Agnès Jaoui, women have been able to make their presence felt in French cinema. Nt Binh, film critic for the film magazine Positif, says: "It's not a wave but a deluge, one that has been going on for more than 50 years."

In fact, it all...