Born in the late 1800s, Cleo Madison, Nell Shipman, and Lois Weber all began their careers as actors and went on to become important directors. Recently rediscovered, Shipman's White Water (U.S., 1924, c. 28 mins, B&W/Tinted, 35mm, From George Eastman House) will be presented in a newly restored and tinted print. This beautifully shot adventure stars Shipman herself as Dreena, a writer who befriends two orphans at a logging camp. When one of the orphans gets stranded on a log in the rapids, will Dreena save the day? In Suspense (U.S., 1913, c. 12 mins, B&W, 35mm, Courtesy Museum of Modern Art), Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley employ an array of innovative formal devices to tell the story of a mother and child who are alone at home when a burglar tries to invade their happy nest. The narratives of the wife, the husband, and the burglar are shown as a triptych within one frame. Her Defiance (Cleo Madison, Joe King, U.S., 1916, 23 mins, B&W, 16mm, From MoMA) is an early feminist story of a single mother who refuses the economic advantages of an arranged marriage with an older man, choosing instead to support herself and her child by working as a cleaning woman.