Celine Song (born Song Ha-yeong;
Korean: 송하영;[1] 1988) is a Korean-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 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] She has hinted at her Western name being a reference to the character in
Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) directed by Jacques Rivette.[5]
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.[7][8][6]
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.[9][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."[10] The play was chosen for the 2018 O'Neill Playwrights Conference and was a finalist for the 2020
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.[11]
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.[12][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."[13]
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.[14][11] 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."[11]
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).[15] 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.[6] 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."[6] The film was produced by
A24 and premiered at
Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2023.[16]Past Lives received critical acclaim and has been compared to the work of
Richard Linklater,
Woody Allen, and
Noah Baumbach.[17][18]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."[19]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."[16] Alissa Wilkinson of Vox said Past Lives should be "one of 2023’s most talked-about films".[20] The film received many accolades including nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the
96th Academy Awards.[21]
Song's first television screenwriting job was as a staff writer for the first season of Amazon's The Wheel of Time.[22] 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.[23][24][25] On April 11th, 2024, the music video for pop artist Laufey's song "Goddess" was released, with Celine Song directing.[26][27] This marks her first directorial debut for a music video.
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.[28][29][6] Song says that he is always the first person to read her scripts.[30]