Toronto’s 2025 People of the Year: Celine Song, Canada Reviews

The filmmaker | Celine Song

Celine Song followed up her breakout hit Past Lives by creating a culture-defining movie with Materialists and revived the rom-com

By Paul Fairfield — philosophy professor, Queen’s University; Celine’s existentialism & postmodernism professor

Professors can’t take credit for our students’ success, although in Celine’s case I wish I could. During her student years at Queen’s, it was clear that she would go far in pretty much anything she went on to do, but Celine has gone much farther and much faster than even I expected. I remember her energy and enthusiasm in discussing ideas and the combination of intelligence and imagination that professors like myself love to see in our students, when we do. That combination is not something any educator can instill. It seems to come from some mysterious place within, and in Celine’s case she seems to be visiting that place quite often. Every culture needs storytellers, maybe now more than ever, and in Celine Song we see a storyteller who may only just be getting started.

By Daniel Pemberton — composer of the Materialists film score

I first met Celine on the sort of nonsense award circuit because I was doing stuff for Spider-Verse and she had just done Past Lives. I loved Past Lives, but it’s funny, because when you’re in that sort of world, when you have a film like Spider-Verse, it’s not often given the same regard as something like Past Lives. But one of the things I think is amazing about Celine is she’s a filmmaker to her core. Those kinds of boundaries of, let’s call it art house, or what’s commercial, don’t apply in the same way if you’re interested in great work and interesting people. We just got on really well, and I was very flattered that she asked me to come and do Materialists. She’s very warm and funny and very supportive as a director, which makes a big difference. I think she’s so smart and on top of so many aspects of the film; she’ll be driving the way it looks, the way it’s presented. And she’s done two very different movies now, and I think they’ve both achieved success in different ways. That’s very hard to do. To have your first breakout movie be a hit is something that happens a lot, but to follow it up with something quite different, that’s still a very strong piece of work — I think that is a sign of a very exciting filmmaker.