Abstract:

Although some significant contributions to early filmmaking production and exhibition involve strong entrepreneurial female figures, very few women’s names appear in the histories of Balkan cinemas. Based on original archival research and press of the time, this article foregrounds the filmmaking activities of the Romanian theatre director and actress Marioara Voiculescu (1885–1976) and the role of her star persona and theatrical experience in the making of early fiction films produced by Leon M. Popescu’s Filmul de Artă company. Voiculescu achieved considerable success during her lifetime, a prolific stage career, founding her own theatre company in 1912, and playing a key role in the production of early films in 1913, yet she has received scant attention in film scholarship thus far. By shifting the focus to Voiculescu’s contribution to early cinema in Romania, I reflect more broadly on the spaces and roles that women occupied in popular culture within the ongoing process of modernisation of Romanian society.

Key words: early cinema, women film pioneers, Romanian cinema, film culture, women’s movements