In my series ‘Icons. Reframed.’ I portray iconic figures from early film history — not as celebrities, but as complex individuals whose stories remain strikingly relevant today. I am drawn to people who challenged convention or were erased from cultural memory: Alice Guy-Blaché, the first female film director, long ignored; Clara Bow, a flapper icon hiding a brutal past; Sessue Hayakawa, a Japanese star constrained by Hollywood stereotypes.