Céline Sciamma

Sciamma[lower-alpha 1] was born on 12 November 1978[1] was raised in Cergy-Pontoise, a suburb outside of Paris.[2] Her father, Dominique Sciamma, is a software designer, and her brother, Laurent Sciamma, is a stand-up performer and graphic designer.[3]

Before attending La Fémis, the première French film school, Sciamma earned her master's degree in French Literature at Paris Nanterre University.[4][5] As a child, she was an avid reader and became interested in film as a teenager.[4] Sciamma cites her grandmother as inspiration to her love of film, saying that had a great interest in old Hollywood movies. Sciamma also attended Utopia, an art house cinema theater in Cergy 3 times a week as a teenager.[6] She wrote her first original script for Water Lilies as part of her final evaluation at La Fémis. Sciamma has stated that she never planned on directing, and that she has thought only about screenwriting or working as a critic, because she felt that directing was too much of a ‘male only’ position.[7] Xavier Beauvois, who was chairman of the evaluation panel, and could be considered as her mentor, persuaded her to make the film.[8] A year after finishing school, she began shooting the film in her hometown.[9]

Sciamma frequently collaborates with Para One, who has scored all her films and directed scripts by Sciamma in the past. She frequently collaborates with cinematographer Crystel Fournier, who worked on Sciamma's Girlhood trilogy, among others.[20]

She is noted for casting non-professional actors in her films, and also frequently casts Adèle Haenel, who appeared in Water Lilies, Pauline, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Sciamma has said that fashion and style form an important part of characterisation, which is why, though uncredited, she is often the costume designer for her films.[21]

Sciamma has cited David Lynch as a heavy influence, along with seeing Virginia Woolf as "the greatest novelist" and Chantal Akerman as "one of the most important filmmakers".[22]

A common theme in Sciamma's films is the fluidity of gender and sexual identity among girls and women.[23] Her films look at lesbianism and queerness, and how this represented on screen. She focuses on the idea of the body, and how touch is related to it within cinema.[24] Sciamma’s notable in her thematic elements for female gaze, and many scholars have cited her as a pioneer for creating a new way of seeing women in media.[25] She also likes to conceptualise the idea of ‘looking’, using Russian nesting dolls as a metaphor of "looking within looking".[7]

Sciamma does not believe in the idea of a muse for her pieces, and despite her personal relationship with Haenel, says that the relationships on screen are of collaboration and subversion, not fascination.[26]

Sciamma focuses on identity and representation in film, such as black identity in Girlhood, and motherhood identity in Petite Maman.[27][28]

Sciamma is a feminist.[29] She was a founding member of the French branch of the 5050 by 2020 movement, a group of French film industry professionals advocating for gender parity in film by the year 2020.[30][31]

She has contributed heavily to discourse with cinema regarding the female gaze.[25] Sciamma uses her platform to speak about the restrictions of the male gaze and present movies that elevate the female gaze.[32] She sees her work, particularly Portrait of a Lady on Fire, as a manifesto of the female gaze. Sciamma stated in an interview: "That’s why the male gaze is obsessed with representing lesbians, for instance. It's a way to control it. Our stories are powerful because they are dangerous. We are dangerous. So it's a very good strategy to despise us — to undermine us — because it's giving us less leverage for a very powerful political dynamic".[33]

In 2018, she co-organised and participated in the women's protest against inequality at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival alongside many notable women in film, including Agnès Varda, Ava DuVernay, Cate Blanchett and Léa Seydoux.[34]

At the premiere of her film Portrait of a Lady on Fire at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, both Sciamma and lead actress Haenel wore 50/50 pins in support of the movement.[35]

In 2020 Sciamma and the Portrait of a Lady on Fire team joined Haenel in walking out of the 45th César Awards after Roman Polanski won the award for Best Director.[36] Sciamma stated in an interview regarding the walk-out that “...there was no plan. It’s all about the moment, a matter of seconds. It’s about moving your legs, as simple as that. And that’s hard. It’s hard to stand up, hard to move your legs. I understand why people don’t. But sometimes you have to.”[26]

Sciamma is lesbian.[37] In 2014, Adèle Haenel publicly acknowledged that she was in a relationship with Sciamma in her acceptance speech for her César Award.[38] The two had met on the set of the 2007 film Water Lilies and started dating sometime after. The couple parted ways, amicably, sometime before the 2018 filming of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which also starred Haenel.[39]

• List of female film and television directors
• List of lesbian filmmakers
• List of LGBT-related films directed by women

• Aguilar, Carlos (12 February 2020). "Love Dialogue: Céline Sciamma on Portrait of a Lady on Fire". RogerEbert.com.
• Belot, Sophie. “Céline Sciamma's La Naissance des pieuvres (2007): Seduction and be-coming”. Studies in French Cinema, 2012, 12:2, 169-184, DOI: 10.1386/sfc.12.2.169_1
• Bramowitz, Julie. “Céline Sciamma's Newest Film, Girlhood, Changes the Face of the Coming-of-Age Story.” Vogue. Vogue, January 30, 2015. https://www.vogue.com/article/girlhood-movie-celine-sciamma-changes-coming-of-age-story.
• Brock, Jeremy (3 December 2019). "Screenwriters' Lecture Series 2019: Céline Sciamma". British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
• Bulloch, Ellie. Subverting the ‘Male Gaze’: How Is a ‘Female Gaze’ Evident in the Works of Sophie Calle and Céline Sciamma? Dissertation, Professor Paul Hegarty, 2021. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/clas/documents/final-year-prizes/2021/ellie-bulloch-dissertation.pdf.
• Musto, Michael (10 February 2020). ""Portrait of a Lady on Fire" Director Céline Sciamma Says Being a Lesbian Is Her "Political Identity"". NewNowNext.
• Palmer, Tim; Michael, Charlie, eds. (2013). Directory of World Cinema: France. Bristol, United Kingdom: Intellect. ISBN 978-1-84150-563-3.
• Pollard, Alexandra (1 March 2020). "Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma: 'Ninety per cent of what we look at is the male gaze'". The Independent.
• Soares, André (14 May 2008). "'Water Lilies': Céline Sciamma Discusses Lesbian Teen Drama". Alt Film Guide.
• Taubin, Amy (November–December 2019). "Interview: Céline Sciamma". Film Comment.
• Wilson, Emma (Spring 2017). "Scenes of Hurt and Rapture: Céline Sciamma's Girlhood". Film Quarterly. 70 (3): 10–22. doi:10.1525/fq.2017.70.3.10. ISSN 0015-1386.

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• Céline Sciamma at the British Film Institute