Ferdinand Zecca
Ferdinand Zecca (19 February 1864 – 23 March 1947) was a pioneer French film director, film producer, actor and screenwriter. He worked primarily for the Pathé company, first in artistic endeavors then in administration of the internationally based company.
Ferdinand Zecca
HISTOIRE DU CINEMA 1947 · Public domain
- Born
- 1864. · Paris.
- Died
- 1947. · Saint-Mandé.
- Nationality
- France.
- Occupation
- actor, screenwriter, film producer, filmmaker and director.
- Fields
- film and screenplay.
- Languages
- French.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Ferdinand Zecca (19 February 1864 – 23 March 1947) was a pioneer French film director, film producer, actor and screenwriter. He worked primarily for the Pathé company, first in artistic endeavors then in administration of the internationally based company.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
Ferdinand Zecca (1864–1947) was an actor, director and film director, among other activities, of French nationality. The actor was born in Paris and died in Saint-Mandé. Activity centred on film and screenplay. Languages used include French.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 28 September 2026
VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Ferdinand Zecca. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
not yet certified
- Identity
- resolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
wikidata · Q240080 · wikipedia · Ferdinand Zecca
In this article
Early life
Early life
Ferdinand Louis Zecca was born in Paris on 19 February 1864 into an Italian family steeped in the entertainment world. His father was the stage manager at the Paris Théâtre de l'Ambigu while his brothers were actors. Zecca also became a stage manager and then an actor, before working as an entertainer, playing the cornet and singing in Parisian cafés. He was playing the cornet at the Foire au Pain d'épices, when he encountered filmmaker Léon Gaumont.
Filmography
Filmography
as director 1899: Les Mésaventures d'un muet mélomane (Le Muet mélomane) 1899: Les Méfaits d'une tête de veau 1901: Une tempête dans une chambre à coucher 1901: Une idylle sous un tunnel 1901: Un duel abracadabrant 1901: Un drame au fond de la mer 1901: La Soupière merveilleuse 1901: Les Sept Châteaux du diable 1901: Rêve et Réalité 1901: Plongeur fantastique 1901: Par le trou de la serrure 1901: La Mégère récalcitrante 1901: Le Mauvais Riche 1901: La Loupe de grand-maman 1901: L'Illusionniste mondain 1901: Histoire d'un crime 1901: L'Enfant Prodigue 1901: Comment on met son couvert 1901: Comment Fabien devient architecte 1901: Scènes vues de mon balcon (Ce que je vois de mon sixième) 1901: À la conquête de l'air 1901: L'Agent plongeur 1901: Une discussion politique 1901: Quo Vadis? 1902: Les Victimes de l'alcoolisme 1902: Une séance de cinématographe 1902: La Fée des roches noires 1902: Le Conférencier distrait 1902: Chez le photographe 1902: La Catastrophe de la Martinique 1902: La Belle au bois dormant (coréalisation de Lucien Nonguet) 1902: Baignade impossible 1902: L'Assommoir 1902: L'Affaire Dreyfus 1902: La Poule merveilleuse 1902: Ali Baba et les quarante voleurs 1902: L'Assassinat du duc de Guise 1903: Samson et Dalila 1903: Repas infernal 1903: La Soubrette ingénieuse 1903: Le Chien et la Pipe 1903: Le Premier Cigare du collégien 1903: Le Démon du jeu ou la Vie d'un joueur (La Vie d'un joueur) 1903: Les Aventures de Don Quichotte (Don Quichotte) (coréalisation de Lucien Nonguet) 1903: Le Chat botté (coréalisation de Lucien Nonguet) 1904: The Wrong Door 1904: Le Portrait 1904: Les Petits Coupeurs de bois vert 1904: Le Pêcheur de perles 1904: Annie's Love Story 1904: La Grève 1905: La Passion de Notre-Seigneur Jésus Christ (La Vie et la Passion de Jésus Christ) 1905: Un drame à Venise 1905: Rêve à la lune (coréalisation de Gaston Velle) 1905: Le Remords 1905: La Course aux tonneaux 1905: Automobile et Cul-de-jatte 1905: Au Pays Noir 1905: Au bagne 1905: L'alcool engendre la tuberculose 1905: L'Incendiaire 1905: Dix femmes pour un mari (coréalisation de Georges Hatot et Lucien Nonguet) 1905: L'Honneur d'un père 1905: Vendetta 1905: Les Apaches de Paris 1905: Brigandage moderne 1907: Le Spectre rouge (coréalisation de Segundo de Chomón) 1907: Le Poil à gratter 1907: Métempsycose 1907: L'Homme Protée 1907: La Course des sergents de ville 1908: Samson (coréalisation d'Henri Andréani) 1908: Le Rêve d'agent 1908: L'Affaire Dreyfus 1909: Le Caprice du vainqueur 1910: La Tragique Aventure de Robert le Taciturne, duc d'Aquitaine 1910: Slippery Jim 1910: Cléopâtre (coréalisation d'Henri Andréani) 1910: 1812, (coréalisation de Camille de Morlhon) All films below are co-directed by René Leprincee 1912: La Fièvre de l'or 1913: Le Roi de l'air 1913: La Leçon du gouffre 1913: La Comtesse noire 1913: Cœur de femme 1913: Plus fort que la haine (film, 1913) 1914: La Danse héroïque 1914: La Lutte pour la vie 1914: La Jolie Bretonne 1914: L'Étoile du génie 1915: Le Vieux Cabotin 1915: Le Noël d'un vagabond 1919: Les Larmes du pardon 1919: Le Calvaire d'une reine As producer 1901: Scènes vues de mon balcon (Ce que je vois de mon sixième) 1901: À la conquête de l'air 1903: Le Démon du jeu ou La vie d'un joueur (La Vie d'un joueur) 1906: Pauvre Mère 1906: La Grève des bonnes 1907: Cendrillon, ou la Pantoufle merveilleuse (Cendrillon) d'Albert Capellani 1907: Les Débuts d'un patineur 1908: Don Juan 1912: Boireau, roi de la boxe 1913: Les Incohérences de Boireau 1913: Boireau empoisonneur 1913: Boireau spadassin as actor 1899: Les Mésaventures d'une tête mélomane (Le Muet mélomane) 1901: Une idylle sous un tunnel 1901: Histoire d'un crime 1901: Comment on met son couvert 1901: À la conquête de l'air 1902: Une séance de cinématographe 1902: Chez le photographe 1902: La Poule merveilleuse 1905: L'Amant de la lune (Rêve à la lune): Le pochard 1905: Automobile et cul-de-jatte 1905: Créations renversantes 1912: Rigadin aux Balkans as writer 1901: Histoire d'un crime 1902: Les Victimes de l'alcoolisme 1903: Le Démon du jeu ou La vie d'un joueur (La Vie d'un joueur) 1905: L'Amant de la lune (Rêve à la lune) 1906: Le Théâtre de Bob 1910: La Tragique aventure de Robert le Taciturne, duc d'Aquitaine 1915: Le Malheur qui passe
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 1902–1947
The full dated record · 3 entries
1902
Alcohol And Its Victims (1902) Directed By Ferdinand Zecca (1902) is digitised and catalogued by Internet Archive.
1902
Alcohol And Its Victims (1902) Directed By Ferdinand Zecca digitised by Internet Archive.
1947
Ferdinand Zecca died in 1947 at Saint-Mandé.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Paris.
Birth place
Saint-Mandé.
Death place
Filmmaking
From 1891, Zecca had worked occasionally recording voice-overs for phonograph records for the Pathé Frères company, a pioneer in the cinema and audio recording industries. After 1895, Pathé became more involved in cinema. Gaumont first hired Zecca as an actor in 1898 but Zecca directed his first film for Pathé, an experimental sound production, Le Muet mélomane (1899) based on a musical Zecca and another artist, Charlus, were performing. At the request of entrepreneur Georges Dufayel, owner of the Grands Magasins Dufayel, they acted the piece before a ciné camera. His next film, Les Méfaits d'une tête de veau (1899) was for Gaumont. In 1900, unable to personally do the work, Charles Pathé had Zecca set up the Pathé pavilion in the Paris World Fair (Exposition Universelle). After seeing his work, Pathé offered Zecca a position in his film company in Vincennes, first as an assistant to a director. Engaging Zecca "for a few weeks", he quickly became Pathé's right-hand man and was soon creating and directing his own films. Zecca explored many themes from the mundane to the fantastic. In À la conquête de l'air (1901), a strange flying machine, called Fend-l'air, was seen flying over the rooftops of Belleville. By using trick photography, the one-minute short was notable in being the first aviation film, predating the flight by the Wright Brothers by two years. Zecca also pioneered one of the first crime dramas, Histoire d'un crime (1901), stylistically innovative in its use of superimposition. The story was of a man condemned to death, awaiting execution with his crimes appearing on his cell wall. The film is an early example of flashbacks as a film device. Other films included comedies, trick films or fairy tales, such as Les Sept châteaux du Diable, both 1901, and La Belle au bois dormant in 1902, as well as social dramas like Les Victimes de l'alcoolisme (1902), Au pays noir (1905) and reconstructions of actual events, the most famous being La Catastrophe de la Martinique (1902). Zecca acted in many of his films. At the end of 1906, assisted by the Spaniard Segundo de Chomón's photography and special effects, Zecca continued to experiment. He co-directed La Vie et la passion de Jésus Christ (1903), which, at a running time of 44 minutes, was one of the first feature-length films about Jesus. He started filming in colour, with second Vie et Passion de N.S. Jésus Christ, shot in four parts with 38 scenes, 990 metres long, which was finished in 1907. Between 1900 and 1907, Zecca oversaw the production of hundreds of Pathé films from many important Pathé directors including Nonguet Lucien, Gaston Velle, Albert Capellani, Louis J. Gasnier, André Heuzé and Henri Pouctal. Zecca also acted, directed, produced, and, on occasion, wrote films. After Pathé bought the rights to Star films, Zecca started editing films by Georges Méliès. Appointed Managing Director of Pathé in 1905, in 1913 Zecca was sent to the United States to take charge of the American Pathé production house. He returned to France in 1919, where as a co-director with René Leprincee, he made Le Calvaire d'une reine, his last film. In the same year, Zecca was appointed to head the Pathé-Baby division, producing equipment and cameras for thin film, where he worked until his retirement in 1939. In March 1947 at the age of 83, in his residence at Saint-Mandé, France, Ferdinand Zecca died.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Death certificate # 113/1947
- 2.Rège 2009, p. 1026.
- 3."The rise of French cinema." brevestoriadelcinema. Retrieved: 30 December 2016.
- 4.Paris 1995, p. 11.
- 5.Gordon 2002, p. 167.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 3
- Gordon, Rae Beth. Why the French Love Jerry Lewis: From Cabaret to Early Cinema. Palo Alto, California:Stanford University Press, 2002. .
- Paris, Michael. From the Wright Brothers to Top gun: Aviation, Nationalism, and Popular Cinema. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995. .
- Rège, Philippe. Encyclopedia of French Film Directors, Volume 1. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2009. .
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
People, houses and institutions
Knowledge graph
People, houses and institutions
Teachers, collaborators, publishers and institutions recorded against this person, each on a stated basis.
Born at
1- ParisPlace
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Film memorabilia
37,298 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Ferdinand GottschalkPerson
- Ferdinand MartiniPerson
- Ferdinand OchsenheimerPerson
- Ferdinand von AltenPerson
- Ferdinando BaldiPerson
- Ferdinando Cito FilomarinoPerson
- Ferdo DelakPerson
- Ferdous AhmedPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Ferdinand Zecca?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.