The first director to create a planned narrative film was a woman named Alice Guy-Blaché
Alice Guy-Blaché became the world's first narrative film director in 1896, pioneering the transition from scientific demonstrations to planned, scripted stories.
While her contemporaries were filming 'actuality' clips of trains and workers, Alice Guy-Blaché directed 'La Fée aux Choux' (The Cabbage Fairy) in 1896, the first film to tell a pre-planned story. As the head of production at Gaumont, she oversaw the creation of hundreds of films, including the 1906 epic 'The Life of Christ,' which featured 300 extras and high production values. She was the first to move the camera from the back of the theater to the front, establishing the proscenium-style framing that defined early cinema.
There's more to this story — open the app to keep reading.