Film season at Triskel Arts Centre to celebrate respected director

IN 2022, the French writer and director Céline Sciamma earned a spot on the Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll.

It was a well-deserved recognition that placed Sciamma up there with some of the best filmmakers of all time, yet she is far from a household name.

This April, Triskel Cinema is showcasing three of Sciamma’s best films, allowing people to see how good she is in a big screen setting and hopefully gaining her many new fans.

Chris O’Neill, head of cinema, says he has followed Sciamma’s career since she began film-making.

“Céline Sciamma is one of the most exciting and notable filmmakers to have emerged from French cinema in the last 20 years,” said Chris.

I seeing her directorial debut Waterlilies back in 2008 and was really impressed. I booked it for a run at the Kino Cinema, which I was programming at the time, and have followed her career with interest ever since.

“Girlhood, Portrait Of A Lady on Fire, and Petite Manan were popular with audiences when we screened them at Triskel when they were originally released, and I thought this would be a nice opportunity to bring these films back and present them over three consecutive nights.”

Sciamma went to the leading La Fémis film school in Paris and released her debut feature film, Waterlilies, for which she won Best First Film at the Cannes Film Festival.

Waterlilies is the first of a trilogy of sorts. While the films are not connected by plot, they all deal with coming-of-age stories.

The final film of the trilogy, Girlhood, is the first in Triskel’s programme. It follows the story of 16-year-old Marieme (Karidkia Touré), who lives in a housing project in the Paris suburbs with her family.

Marieme wants freedom from her family and from her circumstances. She also wants freedom from her school, which doesn’t see her as someone with prospects, not because of her ability but because she is Black and poor.

Marieme finds allies in a new group of friends, Lady (Assa Sylla), Adiatou (Lindsay Karamoh) and Fily (Mariétou Touré). While she gains some independence and more confidence, they lead her into a life of crime, leaving her to make some big decisions about her future.

Most of the actors in Girlhood are non-professionals. Sciamma scouted shopping centres and train stations to find them. The cast is predominantly Black, and when the director went to drama schools to find actors, she found French theatre schools were almost all white, which is why she turned to non-professionals.

The film has much to say about race in today, as well as its coming-of-age themes.

In 2019, Sciamma wrote and directed Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, an 18th-century story of forbidden love. It is arguably one of the best films of this century, and it catapulted Sciamma into a list of filmmaking greats.

It won several awards, including two at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film follows Marianne (Noémie Merlant), an accomplished painter who is hired to paint Héloïse (Adèle Haenel).

Her mother has commissioned Marianne to paint her portrait as a wedding present for her wealthy Milanese fiancé. Héloïse does not want to be painted, nor does she wish to marry her suitor. She has already rejected attempts by male painters, so her mother thinks she is being clever in hiring a female artist.

Beautifully filmed, making use of dramatic coastlines, elegant sets, and detailed costumes, it is a beguiling and rich film that will leave the audience reeling.

Portrait Of A Lady On Fire is an exquisite piece of filmmaking, so how do you follow up on perfection?

Sciamma moved to the modern day for her follow-up, Petite Maman, a beautiful portrayal of childhood.

The film proved there was no need to doubt Sciamma’s continued ability to make excellent films. It looks at loss, childhood imagination, and the bond between mothers and daughters. The film might be about childhood imagination or fantasy. It has endless possibilities, but Sciamma lets the audience choose rather than spoon-feeding the answers.

The story revolves around eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz), who experiences loss for the first time when her beloved grandmother dies. Nelly’s mum, Marian (Nina Meurisse), and dad (Stéphane Varupenne) travel to the grandmother’s house to pack up her belongings.

While her mum faces her grief as she says goodbye to the house she grew up in, Nelly explores the surrounding woods. She is not yet able to fully process her grandmother’s death; she is too young to deal with such big emotions.

She meets a girl about her age who is building a treehouse in the woods. The girl is played by Josephine’s real-life twin, Gabrielle Sanz. Their likeness brings them together; they become fast friends and begin exploring Nelly’s grief together.

Sciamma has the ability to paint pictures with her camera. That is not unique to her; many directors have this talent, but Sciamma thoroughly understands what it means to present a tableau.

Her pictures on screen have a quality of stillness that utterly absorbs the viewer. Any number of stills from her films could be placed on a wall as artwork.

She is an economical filmmaker who understands the idea of less is more. She doesn’t skimp on detail; her work is rich in that, but there isn’t a single frame that doesn’t serve a purpose. She does not extend scenes by padding them out or overextending dialogue.

Her economy means every frame counts, every word is significant.

Three Films by Céline Sciamma runs at Triskel Cinema from April 1-3 - see triskelartscentre.ie