For a motion picture feature directorial debut, Celine Song is having a pretty good time navigating its afterlife – meaning awards season. She recently won the prestigious Best First Feature Award from the Directors Guild for her debut film, Past Lives. She is also currently Oscar-nominated for Best Original Screenplay (where the film is a Best Picture nominee), and yesterday received a Writers Guild nomination as well. Add to all this a Critics Choice Screenplay nomination, her two BAFTA nominations, two Golden Globe nominations as writer AND director, plus wins at the Gotham Awards for Best Film, the National Board Of Review for Best Feature Debut, and the New Generation Award from the LA Film Critics, among countless other honors from a host of critics groups this season. She has also received high praise from no less than the likes of Christopher Nolan and the Daniels among others, and won the Vanguard Award when the film premiered over a year ago at Sundance.
Although Song has worked in the past on the Amazon series, Wheel Of Time, her primary focus was on the stage with such works as Endings, and a wildly experimental version of The Seagull using Sims 4 on Twitch. For her film debut she went deep into her own experiences as a Korean American, married and living in New York, whose life is changed when she has a visit from a long ago boyfriend from South Korea. Hence the title: Past Lives.
Song joins me for this week’s edition of my Deadline video series, Behind The Lens where she tells me she is now hopelessly hooked on a future in film, and in fact already has a second feature lined up called The Materialists with Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal reportedly on track to join the cast.
To watch our conversation and to go ‘behind the lens’ with Celine Song just click the link above.