Celine Song on Personal Stories and the Urgency of First Films

Shashat Media at the Marrakech International Film Festival 2025

At the 2025 Marrakech International Film Festival, Shashat Media spoke with filmmaker Celine Song, who reflected on making deeply personal films and the importance of supporting new voices in cinema.

Song explained that although she has only made two films so far, both are personal to her. She believes that when a story comes from a specific, honest place, it has the potential to resonate far beyond the filmmaker’s own experience. What begins as something personal, she said, can become meaningful for others in ways she cannot control or predict.

She expressed her happiness at being in Marrakech, noting that the festival places a strong focus on first- and second-time filmmakers. With Past Lives being her debut feature, Song said the environment felt especially meaningful. She described filmmaking as being driven by a constant urgency, a feeling of “burning” to tell the story you need to tell before it slips away.

Song also shared advice for younger audiences, particularly those in their twenties. She encouraged them to watch as many films as possible, not only across genres and eras, but also films made by people who are clearly driven by that same urgency to tell their stories.

“You should watch a lot of debut films,” she said, emphasizing the value of discovering filmmakers at the very beginning of their careers. For Song, there is something powerful about witnessing a voice form in real time, before it becomes shaped by expectation or industry pressure.

At Marrakech 2025, Song came across as thoughtful and passionate, advocating not just for personal storytelling, but for curiosity. Her message was clear: cinema stays alive when audiences are willing to seek out new voices and stories that feel necessary, not safe.