Arts & Entertainment

Fort Lee Film Commission Honors Legacy of Pioneering Filmmaker

Members gathered at a cemetery in Mahwah Sunday, where they dedicated a new marker at Alice Guy Blaché's gravesite on the birthday of the "first woman director in cinema history" and the centennial of the founding of her studio in Fort Lee.

The Fort Lee Film Commission Sunday honored pioneering filmmaker Alice Guy Blaché, who founded Solax Studio in Fort Lee 100 years ago and whose birthday was July 1, by dedicating a new marker at her gravesite—one more befitting a woman who played such an important role in cinema history.

Blaché, who died in New Jersey at the age of 95, is buried in Maryrest Cemetery in Mahwah, and until Sunday, her grave was only marked with her name and the dates of her birth and death, as Film Commission executive director Tom Meyers wrote in a .

Now, thanks to the efforts of the Fort Lee Film Commission, the marker on Blaché’s grave reads as follows:

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Alice Guy Blaché

1873-1968

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First Woman Motion Picture Director

First Woman Studio Head

President of the Solax Company, Fort Lee, N.J.

The new marker was dedicated Sunday “to celebrate Madame Blaché’s life and work,” according to Meyers.

Photographer Christopher Costa was on hand for the dedication in Mahwah and captured these images.


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