Directora

Who Was the First Black Female Director?

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 07:00:00 GMT

Season one of Directora is all about foundations. We've talked about the first female director ever, and we talked about Hollywood's first successful female director. Today, we ask the question: who was the first Black female filmmaker?

Well, this is actually a difficult question to answer. There is no one answer. There are a couple of early contenders, but the answer also depends on what you’re asking. In this episode, we'll talk about several Black female pioneers in film, from Madame Welcome to Tressie Souders to Eloyce King Patrick Gist to Zora Neale Hurston to Jessie Maple, and more!

This episode originally aired with Grab Bag Collab. Thank you to Amanda Rossman, Daisy Eagan, and Amber Hunt. Thank you to Brock Alter for sound help and podcast artwork. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok to see clips and stills from the topics talked about in this episode.

Sources used for this episode:

Abbot, Robert. S. “Among the Movies,” Chicago Defender, 20 November 1915, p. 5.

Baker, Christina N. Black Women Directors. Rutgers University Press, 2022.

Bobo, Jaqueline. Black Women Film & Video Artists. AFI Film Readers. Routledge, 1998.

The Billboard, NY Digital Library, 31 Dec. 1921, p. 43. www.fultonhistory.com/newspaper

Black Film Archive - 1920s. https://blackfilmarchive.com/1920-s

“I Invest in Myself and I Make My Films: Jessie Maple on Breaking Boundaries in Filmmaking”. NU Block Museum. February 6, 2020.

https://nublockmuseum.blog/2020/02/06/i-invest-in-myself-and-i-make-my-films-jessie-maple-on-breaking-boundaries-and-filmmaking-audio/

Jackson, Ashwanta. “Black Camerawoman Jessie Maple’s Fight to Join a Union”. JSTOR Daily. May 13, 2021. https://daily.jstor.org/black-camerawoman-jessie-maples-fight-to-join-a-union/

Knuppel, Jennie. “The First Black Woman to Write and Produce and Act in Her Own Film”. Saturday Evening Post. February 29, 2024. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/02/the-first-black-woman-to-write-produce-and-act-in-her-own-film/

Morgan, Kyna; Aimee Dixon. "African-American Women in the Silent Film Industry." In Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2013. https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-vt0f-1758

Stratton, L.E. “How White Women’s Patronage of Black Artists Exposed Racial Fault Lines.” Lit Hub. June 13, 2024. https://lithub.com/how-white-womens-patronage-of-black-artists-exposed-racial-fault-lines/

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Sex Sells Feminism: Stephanie Rothman

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:48:16 GMT

They say sex sells, but can sex also sell feminist ideas? That's what director Stephanie Rothman did in the 60s and 70s. European movies and groovy new ideas inspired the bold director to make low-budget movies with big impacts. She began working for the great B-movie director Roger Corman, who trusted her to direct her first independent films.

She directed The Student Nurses, launching a wave of "sexy nurse" movies in the 70s. However, it was so much more than a sexploitation film playing at drive-in movies to teen boys. The film followed its young female protagonists through a variety of dramas that touched on issues that were affecting real women in the outside world. From pregnancy to addiction to revolution, The Student Nurses was about a lot more than sex. Don't get me wrong - there IS sex in the movie, but there's more than that.

Rothman cleverly "snuck" feminist ideas into raunchy movies. She also infused her sexy vampire film, The Velvet Vampire, with plenty of dreamy visuals that inspired later horror films such as The Love Witch. Her films touched on politics, sex, and love, and even included a sex-work film starring a young Cassandra Peterson (that's Elvira!). She did all of this while working within the exploitation genre, simply because it was the only avenue that she was offered. As a result, she fought against notions that her films were silly genre movies or filth. Rothman is still disregarded in feminist film studies for that reason. Let's change that! It's time to recognize Rothman's work as valuable for feminist filmmaking and female directors as a whole.

Thank you for listening! This episode was originally published with Grab Bag Collab. Special thanks to them! Thanks to Brock Alter for the podcast art and tech help. Directora is researched, written, edited, and hosted by Stephanie Weber.

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Hollywood's First Female Director: Lois Weber

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 07:00:00 GMT

Lois Weber was a powerhouse director in her day. She wrote and directed blockbuster films. She experimented with split-screen storytelling, wrote boundary-pushing material, and even directed Hollywood's first nude scene. She was the first female studio head. She had lucrative contracts with major studios like Universal. At one point in the 1910s, her movies made more money than Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith. In fact, DeMille said she was his favorite director. So why haven't you heard of her? Why didn't her career thrive like her male contemporaries'? There are a few really good - and surprising - reasons for that, which we will talk about in this episode.

Grab Bag Collab originally launched this episode. Thank you to them and thank you to Brock Alter for the podcast art. Stephanie Weber is the host, writer, researcher, creator, and owner of Directora. Thank you so much for listening!

Please note that there is a microphone update after the first 8 episodes and a general skill increase, so the sound really improves in a few episodes. Stick with it! Follow us on Instagram and TikTok for clips of the movies discussed in these episodes and news about all things women in film.

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Welcome to Directora!

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 07:00:00 GMT

What is Directora? Listen to this short trailer that talks about what the podcast is, who it is for, and what's happening next. This is a podcast that celebrates the history and contributions of women in film. We've had two seasons and are moving networks to a free feed, so this is about where we've been and where we're headed. Tune in every Wednesday to hear a new episode of Directora.

Thank you to Grab Bag Collab for launching this podcast's first two seasons.

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The First Female Filmmaker: Alice Guy-Blaché

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:00:00 GMT

On the very first episode of Directora, host and creator Stephanie Weber introduces herself and the premise of the entire podcast. This podcast celebrates the history of women in film, so it is only fitting that we start with the very beginning of the film industry and the woman believed to be the first female filmmaker in the world.

Her name was Alice Guy-Blaché, and she went from being an employee at a camera company in France to the writer, director, and producer of over 1,000 films. Yes, you read that right! She even made films in America in the early 1900s, when her film company set up a second location in the budding East Coast film industry in the United States. Her breakthroughs include the first narrative films, feminist satires, and films featuring the first all-Black casts. This is the astounding story of Alice Guy-Blaché, her contributions to cinema as a whole, and what happened to her towards the end of her life. While many of her films are lost to time, there are several that remain. Please follow us on Instagram (directora_podcast) and TikTok (directorapodcast) to see clips of her films as well as promotional posters and still images.

Welcome to Directora! I'm so happy you're here.

Special thanks to friends Joel Walkowski, John Campogna, Jeff LaPenna, Veronica Hetschinof, Marissa Hansen, Emily Roscoe Jones, Brock Alter, and Alex Van Beek for answering my questions up top. Thank you to Daisy Eagan for editing my script and to Amanda Rossman for the final sound mix. Special thanks to Brock Alter for the art and tech help. It took a village to make this first episode of Directora!

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