Celine Song

Celine Song is a South Korean-Canadian director, playwright, and screenwriter based in the United States. Her oeuvre includes plays such as "Endlings," performed at the American Repertory Theater and later off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop in 2020, and "The Seagull on The Sims 4," a unique live production conducted on Twitch. Other noteworthy plays written by Song include "Tom and Eliza," "Family," and "The Feast."

Her directorial film debut, "Past Lives," received considerable critical acclaim and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards, making Song the first Asian woman to be nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Additionally, she became the first Asian female director to receive a nomination in the Best Picture category. Further recognition for "Past Lives" included multiple nominations and awards across various film festivals and award ceremonies in 2023 and 2024. Song's accolades for this film included the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Picture and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – First-Time Feature Film.

Besides her work in theatre and film, Song contributed to the television industry as a staff writer for the first season of Amazon's "The Wheel of Time" in 2021. Her creativity extends into music as well, having directed the music video for Laufey's song "Goddess," which was released in April 2024. Song's "Materialists" was released in theaters on June 13, 2025, featuring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans.

Throughout her career, Song has been awarded residencies, fellowships, and commissions from MTC/Sloan, Sundance, the Millay Colony for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation. Her academic background includes an undergraduate degree from Queen's University and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Columbia University.