Epstein, Marie

(Marie-Antonine Epstein / Au­gust 14, 1899, Warsaw, Poland-April 24, 1995, Paris, France)

   The daughter of a French-Jewish father and a Polish mother, she was film director Jean Epstein's sister. In France since 1903, she worked mainly as screenwriter and co-director with her brother and Jean Benoît-Lévy (she was his assistant for Le Feu de Paille / USA: Fire in the Straw, 1940, and most of the shorts he directed). During the occupation of France, she was arrested by the Nazis with Jean Epstein and escaped the concentration camps thanks to the Red Cross. Until the end of the 1980s, she worked at the Cinémathèque française (she co-founded it in the 1930s), where she restored many silent films. She also dedicated much of her time to the knowledge of her brother's works and gathered all his theoretical writings into two volumes titled Ecrits sur le Cinéma (Editions Seghers, 1975) and, as producer, Maternité (Jean Benoît-Lévy, 1929). Other credits (as screenwriter): 1923 Cœur fidèle (also co-screenwriter, actor as Mlle. Merice, Jean Epstein); 1925 Le Double Amour (Jean Epstein); 1927 Six et demi, Onze (Jean Epstein); 1958 Liberté surveillée (also co-screenwriter; Henri Aisner, Vladimir Voltchek, France / Czechoslovakia, shot in 1957).

 Filmography

1929 ◘ Il était une Fois trois Amis (co-director with Jean Benoît-Lévy)

        ◘ Leau de Pêche (co-director with Jean Benoît-Lévy)

        ◘ Jimmy (medium-length; co-director with Jean Benoît-Lévy)

        ◘ Cœur de Paris / Le Cœur de Paris (co-director with Jean Benoît-Lévy; also co-screenwriter)

1933 ◘ La Maternelle / UK and USA: Children of Mont­martre (co-director with Jean Benoît-Lévy; also co-screenwriter, co-dialogist)

        ◘ Itto (co-director with Jean Benoît-Lévy)

        ◘ Hélène (co-director with Jean Benoît-Lévy; also co-screenwriter, co-dialogist)

        ◘ La Mort du Cygne (co-director with Jean Benoît-Lévy; also co-screenwriter, co-adapter, co-dialogist)

1939 ◘ Altitude 3200 (co-director with Jean Benoît-Lévy)

1953 ◘ La grande speranza (documentary; co-director with Leonide Azar; Italy)