The Director You're Sleeping On

Celine Sciamma has been making quietly revolutionary French cinema for over a decade, but her name still does not register with most American film audiences. The director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Tomboy, and Petite Maman creates films of extraordinary visual beauty and emotional precision.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire, her 2019 masterpiece, is a period romance set in 18th-century Brittany between a painter and her subject. The film constructs its love story almost entirely through the act of looking. It is one of the most visually articulate films about desire ever made.

Petite Maman, her 2021 follow-up, is a 72-minute film about an eight-year-old girl who meets her mother as a child. The premise is fantastical, but the execution is grounded in everyday childhood details.

Sciamma directorial style is defined by restraint. She uses natural light, minimal score, and long takes. The filmmaking is invisible, which paradoxically makes it more powerful.

Her work with child actors is particularly notable. In Tomboy and Petite Maman, she directs performances from children that feel uncoached and natural.

Explore her filmography through the Criterion Collection at https://www.criterion.com.

Sciamma is the director you recommend to friends who think they do not like art-house cinema. Her films are accessible, emotionally generous, and short enough to watch in a single sitting.