From Girlhood to Portrait of a Lady on
fire, the film-maker’s intimate human dramas have brought her acclaim. She talks about her latest, Petite Maman, and the trouble with the French film industry
Céline Sciamma makes small films about stolen moments, secret selves and outsiders who have crafted a vital life in the shadows. Her subjects are the overlooked and the unrecognised, whether that’s a band of black schoolgirls from the
Paris banlieue or windswept gay lovers in 18th-century Brittany. One way or another, these people are in search of sanctuary and empowerment. Her fanbase, I’m guessing, have already found both in her work.
“In all my films, it’s always the same,” she says. “It’s always about a few days out of the world, where we can meet each lover, love each other. Also it’s always about female characters because they can be themselves only in a private place where they can share their loneliness, their dreams, their attitudes, their ideas.” Her pictures are intended as a kind of safe space. Obviously for the protagonists; hopefully for an audience, too.