1934: Fétiche (The Mascot)

To simplfy the dream-in-a-dream-in-a-dream-type of plot greatly, a toy dog ventures into a world inhabited by lots of strange creatures, only for a fight to break out over the orange that he brought. The reasonably charming 26-minute movie which combines stop-motion with a little conventionally shot film (6.5) was made by one Ladislas Starewicz, who, if Wikipedia is to be believed, was inspired to do stop-motion because as the

director of a museum of natural history in Kaunas [...] he made four short live-action documentaries for the museum. For the fifth film, Starewicz wished to record the battle of two stag beetles, but was stymied by the fact that the nocturnal creatures inevitably went to sleep whenever the stage lighting was turned on.

Opportunity knocks!