TSPDT

Key Production Country: France
Key Genres: Drama, Teen Movie, Romantic Drama, Coming-of-Age, Childhood Drama, Psychological Drama
Key Collaborators: Bénédicte Couvreur (Producer), Julien Lacheray (Editor), Jean-Baptiste de Laubier (Composer), Crystel Fournier (Cinematographer), Thomas Grézaud (Production Designer), Christel Baras (Character Actress), Adèle Haenel (Leading Actress), Claire Mathon (Cinematographer)

"Born in the Parisian suburbs, Sciamma wrote the script for her first film, Water Lilies, while she was still at school. The film, a tense, at times troubling drama about three teenage synchronised swimmers, was screened at Cannes and followed up with Tomboy, which tracked the adolescence of a gender-nonconforming child… The focus of Sciamma’s output is squarely on women, usually young women on the cusp of some major change – and how they look at themselves and each other." - Gwilym Mumford (The Guardian, 2020)

"She’s a firebrand on and off screen: co-director of the French Society of Film Directors, she was one of the organisers of the 2018 Cannes protest, when 82 women gathered on the red carpet to draw attention to the festival’s record of ignoring female directors. She is now advocating for 5050x2020, the campaign for gender parity in the film industry – focused, she notes, not on equal funding but on “equal representation in the room where the decisions are taken." - Isabel Stevens, BFI (2020)

"While never losing sight of the social surroundings (and restrictions) that condition or constrain her characters, Sciamma is more interested in actions than definitions; in what her women do rather than what they “are,” according to conventional classifications of sexual and gender fluidity." - Chloe Lizotte (Cinema Scope, 2020)

"With Portrait of Lady on Fire French director Céline Sciamma established herself as one of the most exciting and prominent filmmakers working. For those who have followed her career they will know that she has developed to this position through a series of groundbreaking films: groundbreaking because they foreground female friendship and desire with a cinematic storytelling which is as refreshing as it is enthralling. She also captures the frailties, intensities and insecurities of youth particularly in her early films and writing for other directors." - Watershed, 2020

"From gritty banlieue drama Girlhood to period piece Portrait of a Lady on Fire and animation My Life As a Courgette, the French director’s films never fail to connect eloquently with us… Sciamma’s track record is pretty much flawless. I honestly cannot think of another contemporary film-maker whose work has proved so thrillingly versatile, yet so reliably perfect." - Mark Kermode (The Guardian, 2024)

"Her remarkably candid and nuanced work explores female friendship and the fluidity of LGBTQI+ identity through a feminist viewpoint, moving outside of many of the conventional ways of representing desire, sexuality, eroticism and the gaze." - ACMI, 2022

"What I like about cinema is that you get to experiment working with the music, the sound, the visuals, etc. There’s a little bit of literature, a little bit of painting - a little bit of every art. I’m not competent in any of these arts, but I can be a dilettante in all of them. I think it’s quite unique that cinema contains all the other arts, and in a very modest way. It’s also a way to be curious about everything." - Céline Sciamma (27 Times Cinema, 2022)