The Cabbage-Patch Fairy

Alice Guy-Blaché — among the first to direct a narrative films — brings to life the French folk legend of babies found among the cabbages. A fairy tends her garden patch, and from between the leaves, infants appear as if by magic. It is a tiny, enchanting thing, made when cinema itself was barely a year old. The original 1896 version is lost; what survives is Guy-Blaché's 1900 remake, a crucial artifact from a pioneering filmmaker whose contributions were largely written out of history for decades. To watch it is to witness both the birth of fantasy filmmaking and the beginning of women's long, underrecognized role behind the camera.