Alice Guy has been almost completely written out of the history of cinema. Where she is mentioned her role has been downplayed. It turns out she was a hugely significant figure. Gaumont, Pathe, and Lumiere developed the technology, Mieles developed special effects, and Guy created the tools and techniques of dramatic storytelling.

Alice trained as a stenographer in early 1890's and obtained a job as a secretary for Henri Gaumont's company in Paris to support her widowed mother. Secretary was a good professional middle class job. Gaumont was a manufacturer of photographic equipment and in the race to develop a workable commercial moving picture system. Alice went with Henri to show their developments at the professional body (Academy of Sciences?) where they saw the first private demo of the Lumiere Brothers system and Alice was blown away by the potential.

Gaumont needed demo films to promote and distribute the cameras, and rather than just making stock shots of everyday things (Train Leaving Station etc) Alice started making little fictional vignettes, thus inventing the narrative cinema. Her first, The Cabbage Patch Fairy, was made in 1896 on the terrace of the Gaumont building.

From there she rapidly developed into effectively inventing the role of film director, the techniques of production from scripting through to managing actors and editing. She made over 1000 films, initially distributed by Gaumont, and later she moved to the states where she set up her own studio (Solax) in New Jersey where the nascent film industry was based.

She disappeared from view after WW1, and returned to France with her two children.

The documentary explores her story, including interview with her on film in 1950's and audio only in 1960s.