Ghosts & Lesbian Archives: In Conversation With Céline Sciamma
- Tamara Wanja
- Feb 25
- 6 min read
"My personal grief is my secret", whispers director Céline Sciamma, as she presents her short film This is How A Child Becomes a Poet on a rainy Wednesday evening in a lecture theatre at the London School of Economics. I first entered the building feeling like an impostor (as a KCL student) but thrilled with excitement and motivated to further my quest. Upon arrival, I was struck by the narrowness and the intimacy of the room - the blessed space where I was planning on reaching the ultimate goal of every cinephile interested in queer cinema: meeting the mother of lesbian films, screenwriter and director Céline Sciamma.
The conversation was first introduced by the screening of her documentary, portraying the last day of the poet and translator Patrizia Cavalli's house, a month after her death. While her grief might be her own, Sciamma was generous enough to turn her loss into a poignant homage, a continuation of a love which perseveres beyond the realm of the mortals. This is How A Child Becomes a Poet merges, in only sixteen minutes, the symbolism of objects, the power of remembrance, and a musing on queer and lesbian archival work.
Known for her critically acclaimed Portrait De La Jeune Fille En Feu (2019) and her subversive films, Céline Sciamma has decided to step back from the commercial circuit and now roams around Europe to give masterclasses to film students, to the audience's great pleasure. The atmosphere of the theatre is joyful, filled with people who seem to know each other, all equally excited to hear from Sciamma.
In discussion with Dr. Sadie Wearing, associate professor of Gender Theory, Culture, and Film at LSE, Sciamma recalls the genesis of her project. Allow me to bring you back to summer 2022. Céline Sciamma is sailing on a gondola in Venice during the prestigious festival and meets a woman with a mystifying voice - the singer and composer Chiara Civello. The two women soon realise that they have a friend in common: the late Patrizia Cavalli. In a spontaneous desire to capture the spirit of the poet before her house is put on the market, Chiara and Céline decide to document the artist's sanctuary before it is gone forever.
This is How a Child Becomes a Poet especially touched me - and very visibly every other person in the room - by its gentle necessity. Sciamma, prior to the screening, explained that her only script was made of one choice: filming two frames per room. With clever editing, she produces a touching homage to a friend, to an artist, to a lesbian woman, and implants her in a transfeminist web-like history.
The question of the archive - most specifically a lesbian archive - is most central in Sciamma's documentary. The director was so intensely intrigued by Cavalli's house, where the poet had lived her entire life; she states that her personal history with a place that one can call home is wholly different: "It's not my case. I don't have a foundation. I have moved many times." On the other hand, she declares that her foundation lies somewhere else, in an abstract and indefinite mosaic, an intangible tapestry of the ghosts of queer women and artists.
Sciamma unfolds the status of her documentary; a short film she decided to keep for scholarly and private use, only showing it in film schools and in the queer bookshop, Violette and Co, in Paris. The privacy of such a screening adds a sort of religious quality to this evening. Later in the discussion, the director, after being asked about the importance of location, mentions the spirituality of places. This part of the discussion struck a chord deep within me; I could feel the people behind me and next to me holding their breaths, latching onto Sciamma's words, as if we were at a mass, joined in praying for the sanctity of cinema, of queer communities, and lesbian filmmaking. Sciamma argues that "ghosts are a big part of the spirituality of cinema" and cleverly links it with children who think people in moving pictures are actually dead people. As she puts her hair behind her ear and moves her hands around as she speaks, one can truly feel her passion for film - but beyond film, her passion for heartfelt and profound friendships, her passion for women. "Only a friend can create an illusion that makes you happy", breathes Sciamma's voiceover in the documentary. Perhaps that is what the essence of cinema is: a friendship between the viewers and the filmmakers, an illusion that makes us happy.
I found we could truly feel the soul of her friend in the two shots per room which make up the film. Patrizia lived in books with cornered pages, in chairs well-sat in, in lamps which barely light due to extensive use, in scattered photos on the floor, but most importantly, in Sciamma's memory. When discussing the editing of her film, the director opened her train of thought with the sentence: "I have all these fragments" - fragments she generously offered to us viewers, fragments she brought to life, through editing, but mostly through a deep felt-love for Patrizia.
"I am not about separating the woman from the artist," brilliantly explains Céline Sciamma - a witty take on the separation of the man from the artist. I could profoundly sense the fragments she had gathered in This is How a Child Becomes A Poet to create such a beautiful documentary and, overall, a charming moment where all the fragments of the people in this room made up the mosaic of this evening, of the conversation.
She paints cinema as a deeply participative experience, made up of the ghosts that inhabit our souls and the people we have met. This is How A Child Becomes a Poet does not only reside in the two frames per room, but also in shots from Hitchcock's films, displaying Patrizia Cavalli's love for Kim Novak, the two women whose names were put together in the credits. This decision, Sciamma explains, is a tribute to her late friend, allowing her to share a relationship - perhaps merely filmic, perhaps more personal - with the actress posthumously, a gentle and amusing nod to lesbians' love for Novak. She draws the filmic portrait of a home, blurring the lines between her work and her identity, both constructed by previous lesbian artists, by close friendships, by songs sung by a woman met on a boat, by notorious directors, and by warm Italian evenings.
Given that Sciamma is French and with London's substantial francophone population, it was no surprise that many individuals in this room spoke her language, myself included. As Sciamma discussed the notion of transfeminist history, she described it as a "ronde" - before inquiring a woman in the audience on how to translate such a word in English. I wondered the same question, feeling an intense moment of connection between the small group of French-speaking queer cinephiles in this room, and I found that it was difficult to convey such a concept. A "ronde" is better explained visually; perhaps that is why Sciamma - a master in the visual display of emotions - used this term. "Une ronde" corresponds to a circular motion of people holding hands together and turning - as the famous Matisse painting or as the motif of the bonfire - a motif found in her film, Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu, where women turn around a fire and sing in solidarity. It is no wonder that such a symbol would be repeated in Sciamma's discussion of filmic language and transfeminist history, as well as in her films. She describes "la ronde" as a compilation of queer women holding hands - from Sappho to now - and I could truly sense such a "ronde" happening in the circular room we were all inhabiting in this moment stuck in time.
In a touching portrait of the poet, Sciamma brings to life the memory of her friend recently passed on, the significance of objects, the locations that have made an artist's identity, the artworks she cherished, but mostly a portrait of a deep, interwoven love for lesbian art and archives. What transpired to me in this screening is the vivacity that settled in Sciamma's bodily, filmic, and verbal language, as she mentioned Patrizia Cavalli and women's art. Her work is deeply important and powerful in keeping a cinematic trace of women whose lives she crossed paths with, in a physical sense, but perhaps most importantly, the women who have impacted her life from afar through their creations. This is How A Child Becomes A Poet is a brilliant homage to a life which has been lost, but which will never truly be forgotten, forever embedded in a web of lives well-lived.
Edited by Lara Walsh, Co-Film & TV Editor
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