Women Directors: Weber, Lois–Pioneering Filmmakers in Silent Era

Before the Hollywood studios really were established (in mid to late 1920s), women directors were quite prominent.

Lois Weber is considered to be the preeminent female director working in and outside the studio system, a position that would be assumed in he 1930s and 1940s by the lesbian filmmaker Dorothy Arzner, and in the 1950s and 1960s by actress-turned helmer Ida Lupino.

Weber directed hundreds of shorts and features during her career, including the Hitchcockian short “Suspense.”

Weber founded her own production company and continued to make exceptional work, but very few cinephiles know her work today, and she is only briefly mentioned in film history books.