Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023: Star Wars Visions Volume 2

“The thing that really made it all work was the storytelling perspectives that could only come from the Japanese community. … Each of these creators were telling a specific take of Star Wars that really could only come from growing up in Japan, and then seeing what Star Wars meant to them in their culture was slightly nuanced and different.”

“When I sat down to write the original pitch outline, I questioned myself, what do I love about Star Wars the most? I love the incredible worlds and creatures and fascinating politics, but what really drew me in was the relationships. Of course the relationship between father and son had been explored in Star Wars. We all know the iconic line, ‘I am your father.’ Because I’m a mother myself, to a six-year-old, I analyze myself constantly as a mom. Whether I’m good enough, that kind of stuff, and I think about my mom a lot, who is here in the audience with us. So I wanted to make a film about a mother-daughter relationship, and motherhood in general. But I wanted to have a bit more positive spin than the original inspiration of Darth Vader and Luke. … I really wanted this film to be a love letter to all the mothers because I think quite often they are overlooked in films, and I think they are the real superheroes.”

“Our short is about two sisters who lost everything – their people, their family – because of an Imperial invasion. The inspiration for this story came from a real story, that for us as Latin Americans and Chileans, is really a very important story and sadly it’s very unknown. During the early 1900s, in the far south of the country in what now is known as Patagonia, a large part of the original inhabitants were killed by the colonists. This happened less than a hundred years ago. This is recent history for us. In spite of this, this is still not a very well-known part of our own history by the vast majority of Chileans and Latin Americans. This is why I felt a big responsibility to tell a story that reflected on the resistance and on the resilience and all the injustice that the original nations of Patagonia had to endure. And we felt that the Star Wars universe was the perfect place to tell this story.”

“Our main character is indeed a dancer. She’s been performing in her cabaret ever since the Empire invaded her planet. We wanted to pay tribute to these side characters in the Star Wars universe, like Jabba’s dancers that made the universe so rich and vivid. Also we got our inspiration from World War II in France, where you could find those famous dancers such as Mata Hari or Josephine Baker performing in front of the soldiers. And actually in those places they would gather information, secrets whispered by the officers. They were totally spies for the French Resistance. So our main character in our short is very much in this line of very strong female figures that eventually helped even change the tides of the war.”

“The idea actually started during the height of the pandemic. At the time that was obviously very difficult for everyone around the world. It was a time of civil unrest. I remember seeing people at protests with signs that had Princess Leia’s face on it, and it said Rebel or Resist on it. It reminded me that Star Wars clearly is inspirational to people all over the world. But sometimes I think that people forget that Star Wars was inspired by the world. With that in mind, the idea really stemmed from this feeling I had, which was: some of us, it feels like we’re just in this pit, being pushed deeper and deeper while others are ascending higher and higher. To me, Star Wars at its core is about those themes. It’s about rebellions and empires, oppression and hope.”