Detail from Hook and Hand [poster] from [Alice Guy] Blaché productions. Chromolithograph. 1913. Film opened February 1914, produced by her husband Herbert Blaché.

From 1896 to 1906 Alice Guy was probably the only woman film director in the world. She had begun as a secretary for Léon Gaumont and made her first film in 1896. After that first film she directed and produced or supervised almost six hundred silent films ranging in length from one minute to thirty minutes, the majority of which were of the single-reel length. In addition, she also directed and produced or supervised one hundred and fifty synchronized sound films for the Gaumont Chronophone.

—https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-alice-guy-blache/

See also:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/movies/be-natural-untold-story-alice-guy-blache-review.html
Emmanuelle Gaume, Alice Guy, la première femme cinéaste de l’histoire : roman (Paris: Editions Plon, [2015]). Firestone Library PQ2707.A945 A625 2015
Daniel Chocron, Alice Guy: pionnière du cinéma ([Paris]: Jardin d’essai, c2013). Firestone Library PN1998.3.G89 C46 2013
Alison McMahan, Alice Guy Blaché: lost visionary of the cinema (New York; London: Continuum, 2002). ReCAP PN1998.3.G89 M39 2002