Kudos to everyone at Kino Lorber for bringing about this vitally important set. Here is the official press release:
New
York, NY -- November 13, 2018 -- Kino Classics is proud to announce the Blu-ray
and DVD release of Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers, a monumental 6-disc
collection, curated by Shelley Stamp (author of Lois Weber in Early Hollywood)
and executive produced by Illeana Douglas, celebrating the ground-breaking
early female directors of American cinema who helped shape the language of
film.
Pioneers:
First Women Filmmakers will become available on Blu-ray and DVD November 20,
2018, with a SRP of $99.95 for the Blu-ray and $79.95 for the DVD. The films in
this collection are accompanied by music scores composed by Renee C. Baker, The
Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, Makia Matsumura, Maud Nelissen, Dana Reason,
Aleksandra Vrebalov, and others. Special Features include an 80-page booklet
with essays and photos, eight short documentaries featuring Interviews with
historians and archivists, and audio commentaries for select films.
Funded
by a successful Kickstarter campaign, Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers
continues the legacy begun by Pioneers of African-American Cinema, equally
ambitious in scale, and every bit as historically significant. Presented in
association with the Library of Congress (and drawing from the collections of
other world-renowned film archives), Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers is the
largest commercially-released video collection of films by women directors,
focusing on American films made between 1911 and 1929 -- a crucial chapter of
our cultural history.
Featuring
2K and 4K restorations of more than 50 films, including features, shorts and
fragments, this collection includes more than 25 hours of material, not only
showcasing the work of these under-appreciated filmmakers, but also
illuminating the gradual changes in how women directors were perceived (and
treated) by the Hollywood establishment. Included are films by such pioneering
filmmakers as Ruth Ann Baldwin ('49-'17), Grace Cunard (The Purple Mask),
Dorothy Davenport (Linda, The Red Kimona), Alice Guy-Blaché (Algie the Miner,
The Little Rangers, Matrimony's Speed Limit, The Ocean Waif), Zora Neale
Hurston (ethnographic films), Cleo Madison (Eleanor's Catch), Frances Marion
(The Song of Love), Alla Nazimova (Salome), Mabel Normand (Caught in a Cabaret,
Mabel's Blunder), Ida May Park (Bread), Nell Shipman (Back to God's Country),
Lois Weber (Hypocrites, Suspense, Scandal, Where Are My Children?), Elsie Jane
Wilson (The Dream Lady), Marion E. Wong (The Curse of Quon Gwon), and many
more.
By
showcasing the ambitious, inventive films from the golden age of women
directors, we can get a sense of what was lost by the marginalization of women
to "support roles" within the film industry.
"The
names Alice Guy-Blaché, Lois Weber, Dorothy Davenport Reid, and other
significant female directors deserve to have their names celebrated next to
DeMille's, and Griffith's as the early pioneers of Hollywood," said
Illeana Douglas. "Just as these woman told powerful stories to raise
awareness and educate, we must do the same! I am honored to be a part of
Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers, so that these films, and filmmakers, can be
put in the pantheon of cinema where they belong."
"Women
played an extraordinary role in early filmmaking, but this history has been
largely forgotten," said Shelley Stamp, author of Lois Weber in Early
Hollywood. "I'm so thrilled that these films have been restored and
re-scored so that contemporary audiences will have a chance to see what female
filmmakers were up to 100 years ago."
In
the early decades of cinema, some of the most innovative and celebrated
filmmakers in America were women. Alice Guy-Blaché helped establish the basics
of cinematic language, while others boldly continued its development: slapstick
queen Mabel Normand (who taught Charlie Chaplin the craft of directing), action
star Grace Cunard, and LGBTQ icon Alla Nazimova. Unafraid of controversy,
filmmakers such as Lois Weber and Dorothy Davenport Reid tackled explosive
issues such as birth control, abortion, and prostitution. This crucial chapter
of film history comes alive through the presentation of a wide assortment of
films, carefully curated, meticulously restored in 2K and 4K from archival
sources, and presented with new musical scores.