Celine Sciamma Quotes

France, Screenwriter
November 12, 1978

Céline Sciamma is a French screenwriter and film director. Sciamma's work is strikingly minimalist, partly the legacy of her mentor, Xavier Beauvois, who advised her while she was a student at the major French film school, La Fémis. While highly formalist and idiosyncratic (notably in her lack of dialogue and very stylized mise-en-scene), Sciamma's filmmaking, beginning with Water Lilies relates closely to the characteristics of first-time filmmaking in France, notably in its emphasis on coming-of-age films focused on adolescents or pre-adolescents. Sciamma is very interested, moreover, in the fluidity of gender and sexual identity among girls during this formative period.

Also known as Film Director

People keep telling me, "You don't like boys!" And I'm saying, "Wow, no, it's just that you're not used to them being objectified in movies, but women are so often objectified in movies and we don't care."

Celine Sciamma
- Women
- Movies
- Boys
I like the idea of a trilogy. It's cool. I like the word. When you do four, the word isn't cool - not as cool.

Celine Sciamma
- Cool
- Word
- Trilogy

I want to try different genres. I think I'll still be looking at a strong female character in the center, and identity struggle and transformation.

Celine Sciamma
I think all movies are political. The ones that are not political intentionally are the worst, and have the worst politics, I think.

Celine Sciamma
- Political
- Movies
- Worst
I like to work around identification for the audience, and when there's a grown-up or a moral figure or something like that, people tend to go there.

Celine Sciamma
I was a lot younger - when I wrote Water Lilies. I was like 26. It felt so natural to write about adolescence.

Celine Sciamma
- Wrote
- Adolescence
I think I like about coming-of-age stories is that there's everything in them. It's a genre that kind of contains everything: you have the chronicle, you can go into naturalism, but it's also about transforming physically, so it's kind of a fantastical genre.

Celine Sciamma
Being in a group is a way to actually to speak up, and define yourself in the comfort, and the complexity of the group.

Celine Sciamma
- Group
- Define
- Speak Up

Obviously, I can't tell the story of what it is to be a black girl, but maybe I can tell something else. Girlhood is not about what it's like to be a black girl, it's about what it's like to be a girl.

Celine Sciamma
- Black
- Girl
- Girlhood
I mean, putting women in the center of a movie and not talking about men, that's already political, right? And you know, political doesn't mean that it sends this message or that is has a statement. It's also political in its aesthetic project.

Celine Sciamma
- Men
- Political
- Mean