Water Lilies

MOVIE #1,362 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 02.09.24 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙲É𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙴 𝚂𝙲𝙸𝙰𝙼𝙼𝙰 (𝙵𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚑: [selin sjama];) 𝙳𝙸𝚁𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙾𝚁 𝙵𝙾𝙲𝚄𝚂 🇫🇷 Today marks the debut of a new Director Focus on the work of French filmmaker Céline Sciamma whose films often explore the fluidity of gender, sexual identity among girls and women, and female gaze. I use the word “often” though, at a glance, this seems to be the exclusive theme/subject matter of her entire oeuvre. Her debut 2007 movie Water Lilies, a sports film about the dog-eat-dog world of youth synchronized swimming, tracks the sexual awakenings of three 15-year-old female friends in a middle-class suburb of Paris over the course of a single summer. There’s a notable absence of any parents or adults in this story which is interesting and helps to narrow the focus. I thought this looked great and was a really nice beginning.

As I come to the end of my Claire Denis D.F., I’ll be examining a new Sciamma feature every other Friday to fill my quota of female/European cinema.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,361 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,363 ⫸

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Water Lilies (French: Naissance des Pieuvres; meaning "Birth of the Octopuses") is a 2007 French drama film and the debut as a screenwriter and director of Céline Sciamma. It won the Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. It was released on May 17, 2007.