Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968), the first woman producer-director of films, joined France's Gaumont Studios as Léon Gaumont's secretary shortly before the firm switched from manufacturing cameras to producing films. Good timing, and good instincts drawing on her experience in amateur theater, led her (while still fulfilling the duties of secretary, mind you) to make her first film, The Cabbage Fairy, in 1896, beating Méliès' debut by a few months. By 1905 she was functioning as Gaumont's artistic director, and had directed over 300 films when she and her husband Herbert Blaché left for America in 1907. They operated their own studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Alice enjoying complete artistic freedom. The Lost Garden is a long-overdue appraisal of this pioneer director whose films ranged from delightful comedies to a religious epic. Clips from her films, and on-camera interviews with Guy-Blaché's surviving family and with others including Anthony Slide, who edited The Memoirs of Alice Guy-Blaché, illuminate the life and work of this director who fell into obscurity and who was belatedly awarded the Legion of Honor in 1953.