The Women's Film Preservation Fund

Alice Guy-Blaché, Meredith Monk, and Actresses Grace Cunard and Francine Everett

Alice Guy-Blaché was arguably the first director of a narrative film (La Fée aux choux, 1896). Films like Matrimony's Speed Limit (1913, 14 mins, Silent, B&W, Courtesy Library of Congress), a comedy on marriage, are notable for their naturalism, delightful humor, and independent female characters. The rare Unmasked (Francis Ford, 1917, 11 mins, Silent, B&W/Tinted, Courtesy George Eastman House) is a short heist caper starring Grace Cunard, the exuberant, multi-talented silent star known as the “Queen of the Serials.” Meredith Monk is a composer, choreographer, filmmaker, and theatrical innovator whose spare, somber, and exquisite Ellis Island (1979, 28 mins, Color, Courtesy of the artist) evokes anonymous documentary films of newly arrived immigrants in the early twentieth century. Dirty Gertie from Harlem USA (1946, 65 mins, B&W, Courtesy David Stedman) is an African-American independent feature loosely based on Somerset Maugham's Rain. It stars Francine Everett, a pioneering actor in African-American features and shorts who refused to play stereotypical roles. She was active in the Negro Actors Guild and involved in the WPA Theater Project. Dirty Gertie was directed by Spencer Williams, best known as Andy Brown on TV's Amos 'n' Andy.

• (Total running time: 118 mins, 35mm)