Marie Epstein

Born to a French Jewish father and a Polish Catholic mother in presentday Poland Marie Epstein moved to Switzerland with her mother Hélène and her brother Jean after the death of her father Jules in January 1907 The Epsteins later established themselves in Lyon France where Jean was completing his studies and then in Paris around 1922 just a few months before Jean directed his first two feature films LAuberge Rouge 1923 and Coeur fidèle 1923 It was also in the early 1920s that Marie became involved in the world of cinema She started as an actressin LAuberge rouge where she appeared as an extra in just a few early shots and in Coeur fidèle two films that she cowrote with Jeanbut found it difficult to secure more roles She then turned fully to screenwriting which led her to work as an assistant director and editor Through the intervention of French director and producer Jean BenoitLévy Marie also became a director at a time when there were few women filmmakers in France After she had been BenoitLévys assistant on several silent film documentaries in the 1920s she then codirected wrote and edited eight sound fiction films with him in the late 1920s and 1930s During that period she also directed at least one short film on her own possibly more After World War II and the death of her brother Jean in 1953 Marie was hired by Henri Langlois as a film preservationist at the Cinémathèque française a job she held until her retirement in 1977