Celine Song (born Song Ha-Young; Korean: 송하영;[1] born September 19, 1988) is a Canadian director, playwright, and screenwriter based in the United States. Among her plays are Endlings and The Seagull on The Sims 4. Her directorial film debut Past Lives received universal critical acclaim, and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the 96th Academy Awards.
Early life and education
Song was born in South Korea.[2] Her parents, both artists, moved the family to Markham, Ontario, Canada when she was 12.[2][3] Her father, Song Neung-han, is a filmmaker.[4] Her mother is an illustrator and graphic designer.[5] She has hinted at her Western name being a reference to the character in the 1974 film Celine and Julie Go Boating, directed by Jacques Rivette.[6]
Song attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario for her undergraduate degree where she studied psychology with a minor in philosophy, before receiving her MFA in playwriting from Columbia University in New York in 2014.[8][9][7]
Career
2019–2020: Off-Broadway works
Song's play Endlings premiered in 2019 at the American Repertory Theater. The show's off-Broadway run opened in March 2020 at New York Theatre Workshop, but was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] The show tells the story of three older Korean women haenyeos and a Korean-Canadian writer living in New York.[10][2] In a mixed review, Alexandra Schwartz of TheNew Yorker described Endlings as "two works spliced roughly together: a traditional play that seeks to depict people’s lives, and a metafictional examination of the playwright’s own motivations, which flirts with honesty before traipsing down a solipsistic path of no return."[11] The play was chosen for the 2018 O'Neill Playwrights Conference and was a finalist for the 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.[12]
In November 2020, Song directed a live production of Chekhov's The Seagull using The Sims 4 on Twitch for New York Theatre Workshop, called The Seagull on The Sims 4.[13][2] In a review for Vulture, Helen Shaw praised the experimental play: "I think Song’s game-play/play-game managed the trick by capturing the experience not of going to a show but of working on one. At her urging, viewers brought the quality of attention that comes with collaboration, and that felt like a churning motor under everything, trying to propel the show into being."[14]
Song's other plays include Tom and Eliza, which was named a semifinalist for the American Playwriting Foundation's 2016 Relentless Award, Family, and The Feast.[15][12] According to her biography on The Playwright's Realm, "she has been awarded residences, fellowships, and commissions from MTC/Sloan, Sundance, the Millay Colony for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation."[12]
Song wrote the screenplay for Past Lives, her directorial film debut, about two childhood friends who later reunite as adults (portrayed by Greta Lee and Teo Yoo).[16] The film is partly inspired by Song's life, specifically a dinner she had with her English-speaking husband and her Korean-speaking friend visiting New York.[7] In an interview with Scott Feinberg for The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast, she reflects on the experience: "at one point, I realized that I wasn't just translating between their languages and cultures, but also translating between these two parts of myself as well."[7] The film was produced by A24 and premiered at Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2023.[17]Past Lives received critical acclaim and has been compared to the work of Richard Linklater, Woody Allen, and Noah Baumbach.[18][19]The Guardian's Benjamin Lee rated it 4/5 stars and praised Song's work: "as writer, Song manages to keep her dialogue believably light-footed and spare while as director, she confidently and evocatively captures both cities with a breadth that belies her inexperience. It's a beautiful, transporting film but one made with both feet firmly on the ground."[20]Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair hailed the film as "understated and yet vast in its consideration of the slow changes of life, of the past ever whispering to the present. The film is as auspicious a debut as one can hope to see at Sundance, the announcement of a filmmaker confident in her craft and generous with her heart."[17] Alissa Wilkinson of Vox said Past Lives should be "one of 2023’s most talked-about films".[21] The film received many accolades including nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the 96th Academy Awards.[22] Song was the first Asian woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and the first Asian female director to be nominated in both the Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay categories of the Academy Awards.[23][24]
Song's first television screenwriting job was as a staff writer for the first season of Amazon's The Wheel of Time.[25] Her next film project, Materialists, is in production with A24 as of December 2023. Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans are in talks to star, with Sony Pictures acquiring select international distribution rights at the European Film Market in February 2024.[26][27][28] On April 11th, 2024, the music video for pop artist Laufey's song "Goddess" was released, with Celine Song directing.[29][30] This marks her music video directorial debut.
Personal life
Song resides in New York City with her husband, writer Justin Kuritzkes, whom she met at an artist residency hosted by the Edward F. Albee Foundation.[31][32][7] Song says that he is always the first person to read her scripts.[33]
