Known for Directing
Céline Sciamma is a French screenwriter and film director. Sciamma's work is strikingly minimalist. She is known for her transformational work with themes of gender fluidity, sexual identity among girls and women, and the female gaze. Sciamma's considers her first three feature films, Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011) and Girlhood (2014) to constitute a coming-of-age trilogy. Her 2019 film, Portait of a Lady on Fire, won her the Queer Palm and Best Screenplay at 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The film was widely acclaimed and was also named the 30th greatest film of all time in the Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll. She has written screenplays for André Téchiné and Claude Barras, the latter of which won her the Best Adapted Screenplay at the 42nd César Awards. Sciamma is also an activist and a founding member of the 50/50 collective, an advocacy association that promotes gender parity, diversity, and inclusion in the film and audiovisual industry.
Born
November 12, 1978 (age 47)
Birthplace
Pontoise, Val-d'Oise, France
Filmography
37 films, 1 show


Tutti Frutti
2026 · 40m · FR
Since 2022, Céline Sciamma has been shooting her own footage: documentary archives born from the desire of a useful camera. Fiction, for its part, has once again become a dream. Tutti Frutti is a journey through all these fragments brought together by editing, and an exploration of the hope of a solo filmmaking practice.


This Is How a Child Becomes a Poet
2023 · 16m · FR
The last day of Patrizia Cavalli’s home. Before it’s all gone.


Petite Maman
2021 · 1h 12m · FR
After the death of her beloved grandmother, eight-year-old Nelly meets a strangely familiar girl her own age in the woods. Instantly forming a connection with this mysterious new friend, Nelly embarks on a fantastical journey of discovery which helps her come to terms with this newfound loss.


Portrait of a Lady on Fire
2019 · 2h 1m · FR
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.


La Coupe Bernard Tapine
2018 · 2m · FR
A football team wins La Coupe Bernard Tapine. A story told via two minute montage.


Girlhood
2014 · 1h 52m · FR
Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.


Tomboy
2011 · 1h 22m · FR
Ten-year-old Laure isn't like most girls. She prefers football to dolls and sweaters to dresses. When Laure and her family move to a new neighbourhood, local girl Lisa mistakes Laure for a boy. Indulging in this exciting new identity, Laure becomes Mickaël, and so begins a summer of long sunny afternoons, playground games and first kisses. Yet with the school term fast approaching, and with suspicions arising amongst friends and family, Laure must face up to an uncertain future.


Pauline
2009 · 8m · FR
A young woman chronicles her childhood of neglect and isolation.


Water Lilies
2007 · 1h 25m · FR
Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.