Céline Sciamma

Sciamma was born on 12 November 1978 and raised in Cergy-Pontoise, a suburb outside of Paris. Her father, Dominique Sciamma, is a software engineer, and her brother, Laurent Sciamma, is a stand-up performer and graphic designer.

Before attending La Fémis, the première French film school, where she studied from 2001 to 2005, Sciamma earned her master's degree in French Literature at Paris Nanterre University. As a child, she was an avid reader and became interested in film as a teenager. Sciamma cites her grandmother as inspiration to her love of film, saying that she had a great interest in old Hollywood movies. Sciamma also attended Utopia, an art house cinema theater in Cergy three times a week as a teenager. She wrote her first original script for Water Lilies as part of her final evaluation at La Fémis. Sciamma has stated that she never planned on directing, and that she has thought only about screenwriting or working as a critic. Xavier Beauvois, who was chairman of the evaluation panel, and could be considered as her mentor, persuaded her to make the film. A year after finishing school, she began shooting the film in her hometown.