Celine Song is a South Korean-Canadian director, playwright, and screenwriter based in the U.S.
Among her plays are Endlings and The Seagull on The Sims 4.
Her directorial film debut, Past Lives, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Fest to great acclaim.
Song was born in South Korea in 1988. Her parents, both artists, moved the family to Markham, Ontario, Canada when she was 12. Her father, Song Neung-han, is a filmmaker.
Song attended Queen’s University in Ontario for her undergraduate degree and studied psychology, before receiving her MFA in playwriting from Columbia University in New York in 2014.
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. The show tells the story of three older Korean women haenyeos and a Korean-Canadian writer living in New York.
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.
Her first TV screenwriting job was as a staff writer for the first season of Amazon’s The Wheel of Time.
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).
The film was produced by A24 and premiered at Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2023.
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.”
The film is understated and yet vast in its probing of the slow changes of life, of the past 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.”
Her film has been compared to those of Richard Linklater, Woody Allen, and Noah Baumbach.
Song resides in New York City with her husband, writer Justin Kuritzkes.
Filmography
2023
Past Lives
The Materialists Yes Yes Filming
TV
2021 The Wheel of Time Staff writer; 8 episodes
Theatre
2020 Endlings Playwright NYTW; February–March, 2020
2020 The Seagull on The Sims 4. Playwright NYTW; October 27–28, 2020
Accolades
2023 Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear Past Lives Nominated
