# Coralie Fargeat

Coralie Fargeat (/fɑːrʒɑː/ far-ZHAH; French:; born 24 November 1976) is a French filmmaker. She gained recognition with her debut feature film, Revenge (2017), for which she received awards from several independent film festivals. Her follow-up feature, The Substance (2024), a satirical body horror film, earned her the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay as well as three Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.

## Early life

Fargeat was born and raised in Paris. She decided to be a filmmaker when she was 16 or 17 years old. Fargeat studied at Sciences Po before beginning work on film sets. In 2010, Fargeat attended La Fémis, a prestigious cinema school in Paris. She was selected to be in its Atelier Scénario, a year-long screenwriting workshop, where she was told her screenplay would never be made because of how violent and graphic it was.
While attending La Fémis, Fargeat and a group of her director friends created a collective called La Squadra, where they all tried to edit their features together, facing similar difficulties as they each wanted to create genre films. They met twice a week and invited filmmakers and industry professionals to share their success stories with them, which helped them to gain a more realistic understanding of the film world, how it works, and the logistics of how to get their stories told.

## Career

Fargeat's first short film Le télégramme was released in 2003, a film about two women awaiting a postman's delivery during World War II. The film won 13 awards at several film festivals.
In 2007, Fargeat co-created Les Fées cloches [fr] with Anne-Elisabeth Blateau, a comedy mini-series which she also directed.
Fargeat released her short follow-up Reality+ in 2014. The sci-fi tale received a nomination for the Jury Award at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Fargeat's debut feature film was Revenge (2017), a revenge thriller about a young woman who is raped and left for dead. Inspired by revenge movies like Kill Bill, Rambo, and Mad Max, Fargeat was interested in exploring a character who would seem "weak" to others or the audience, but during the film would undergo a transformation into a "kind of superhero" that would set out to get her revenge. The film had its world premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival in the festival's Midnight Madness section, and was selected to be screened at 23 additional film festivals.
In 2022, Fargeat directed an episode of the Netflix series The Sandman.
Fargeat's second feature film was The Substance (2024), a body horror film starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid. The film premiered in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival to a strong critical reception. Fargeat went on to win the festival's Best Screenplay award for the film.
Fargeat is a member and one of the founding signatories of Collectif 50/50, a group established with the purpose of working towards gender equality across the film industry.

## Filmmaking style and influences

Fargeat is fascinated with the suspension of disbelief, and is a fan of using imagery and symbols to express something simple in a powerful way. She is fascinated with films that are able to create their own world and manage to exist outside the realm of reality, citing revenge films like Kill Bill and Rambo as examples of this.
In making graphic or gore-filled movies, Fargeat finds that balancing violent scenes with humor makes the violence more tolerable.
Fargeat believes that films that fill themselves with homages and references can push the viewer away from being able to identify with the film. She describes this separation as "second-degree moments" and chooses to stay away from excessive references. Fargeat finds it crucial to approach film and filmmaking with a genuine and sincere vision, stating she tries to "embrace [her] subject in its choices, its biases, its excesses, in its faults too" to achieve this.
When in pre-production for Revenge, she stated that actress Matilda Lutz was chosen for the part partially because of her extensive trust in Fargeat, something that was important to her for the creation of the film.
Fargeat lists David Cronenberg, John Carpenter, David Lynch, Paul Verhoeven, and Michael Haneke as filmmakers who have influenced her, as well as crediting several South Korean filmmakers as stylistic inspiration.

## Filmography

Feature film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Editor |
| 2017 | Revenge | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| 2024 | The Substance | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Short film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer |
| 2003 | Le télégramme | Yes | Yes |
| 2014 | Reality+ | Yes | Yes |
Television
| Year | Title | Notes | Ref. |
| 2008–2014 | Les Fées Cloches | Co-creator and starred as Pata | |
| 2022 | The Sandman | Episode: "Collectors" | |

## Awards and nominations

| Award | Year | Category | Work | Result | Ref. |
| Festival International du Film d'Amiens | 2004 | Prix des enfants de la Licorne | Le télégramme | Won | |
| Fajr International Film Festival | 2005 | International Competition – Best Short Narrative Film | Le télégramme | Won | |
| Corti Da Sogni Antonio Ricci International Short Film Festival | 2015 | European Sogni Award | Reality+ | Won | |
| Tribeca Festival | 2016 | Jury Award for Best Narrative Short | Reality+ | Nominated | |
| Sitges Film Festival | 2017 | Best Director | Revenge | Won | |
| Sitges Film Festival | 2017 | Citizen Kane Award for Best New Director | Revenge | Won | |
| Monster Fest | 2017 | Best International Feature | Revenge | Won | |
| Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival | 2018 | Best of Bucheon Award | Revenge | Won | |
| Calgary Underground Film Festival | 2018 | Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature | Revenge | Won | |
| Cleveland International Film Festival | 2018 | New Direction Competition | Revenge | Nominated | |
| Cleveland International Film Festival | 2018 | ReelWomenDirect Award for Excellence in Directing by a Woman | Revenge | Nominated | |
| Fangoria Chainsaw Awards | 2019 | Best Director | Revenge | Nominated | |
| Fangoria Chainsaw Awards | 2019 | Best Limited Feature | Revenge | Nominated | |
| Cannes Film Festival | 2024 | Palme d'Or | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Cannes Film Festival | 2024 | Best Screenplay | The Substance | Won | |
| Toronto International Film Festival | 2024 | People's Choice Award: Midnight Madness | The Substance | Won | |
| European Film Awards | 2024 | European Film | The Substance | Nominated | [33] [34] |
| European Film Awards | 2024 | European Screenwriter | The Substance | Nominated | [33] [34] |
| San Diego Film Critics Society | 2024 | Best Director | The Substance | Nominated | |
| San Diego Film Critics Society | 2024 | Best Original Screenplay | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Seattle Film Critics Society | 2024 | Best Picture | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Seattle Film Critics Society | 2024 | Best Director | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Seattle Film Critics Society | 2024 | Best Screenplay | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Seattle Film Critics Society | 2024 | Best Editing | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Chicago Film Critics Association | 2024 | Best Director | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Chicago Film Critics Association | 2024 | Best Original Screenplay | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Golden Globe Awards | 2025 | Best Director – Motion Picture | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Golden Globe Awards | 2025 | Best Screenplay – Motion Picture | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Golden Globe Awards | 2025 | Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Critics' Choice Movie Awards | 2025 | Best Director | The Substance | Nominated | [39] [40] |
| Critics' Choice Movie Awards | 2025 | Best Original Screenplay | The Substance | Won | [39] [40] |
| London Film Critics' Circle | 2025 | Director of the Year | The Substance | Nominated | |
| London Film Critics' Circle | 2025 | Screenwriter of the Year | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Satellite Awards | 2025 | Best Original Screenplay | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Independent Spirit Awards | 2025 | Best Feature | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Dorian Awards | 2025 | Film of the Year | The Substance | Won | [44] [45] |
| Dorian Awards | 2025 | Director of the Year | The Substance | Won | [44] [45] |
| Dorian Awards | 2025 | Genre Film of the Year | The Substance | Won | [44] [45] |
| Dorian Awards | 2025 | Campiest Flick | The Substance | Won | [44] [45] |
| Dorian Awards | 2025 | Screenplay of the Year | The Substance | Nominated | [44] [45] |
| Dorian Awards | 2025 | Wilde Artist Award | The Substance | Nominated | [44] [45] |
| Santa Barbara International Film Festival | 2025 | Outstanding Director of the Year | The Substance | Honored | |
| César Awards | 2025 | Best Foreign Film | The Substance | Nominated | |
| British Academy Film Awards | 2025 | Best Direction | The Substance | Nominated | |
| British Academy Film Awards | 2025 | Best Original Screenplay | The Substance | Nominated | |
| Academy Awards | 2025 | Best Picture | The Substance | Nominated | [2] [49] |
| Academy Awards | 2025 | Best Director | The Substance | Nominated | [2] [49] |
| Academy Awards | 2025 | Best Original Screenplay | The Substance | Nominated | [2] [49] |