Coralie Fargeat, who is nominated for Best Director and Best Picture for her horror film “The Substance,” just shared the first movie she ever made: A 14-minute stop-motion “Star Wars” fan movie she made in 1993 when she was 17.
The video, titled “La Guerre des Étoiles” (literally “Star Wars” in French), was released on Monday on Letterboxd and on YouTube. The short uses action figures and some live actors to recreate scenes from 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” including the Ewoks mistaking C3-PO for a god.
Feargeat told Letterboxd, “30 years ago, when I was 17 years old, I made a little Star Wars film. Using my family’s camcorder, I animated my toys frame by frame in stop motion, disguised my friends as Ewoks and stormtroopers and edited it on a VHS video recorder (which was the top device at the time!)”
The filmmaker called it “such an amateur endeavor,” but added, “everything I loved about making films was already there.” Just with a whole lot less blood than in “The Substance” and her 2017 debut film “Revenge.”
“It was the place where I felt free, passionate and alive, and able to fully express myself. It’s after I made this little film that I knew that I wanted to be a director,” she wrote.
“Today, I am nominated for Best Director, and I can’t help but remember this little film … Follow your dreams!” she encouraged other film fans.
“The Substance” is nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress (Demi Moore).
Watch “La Guerre des Étoiles” in the embedded video above.
