Celine Song’s ‘Past Lives’ Nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars

Past Lives, a film directed by Korean-Canadian Celine Song, has been nominated for Best Picture and Best Screenplay at the American Academy Awards.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the U.S. has nominated Past Lives for Best Picture and Celine Song for Best Screenplay on the 23rd.

Song became the third director of Korean descent to put their name on a film nominated for Best Motion Picture, following Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite (2019) and Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari (2020).

Past Lives revolves around two childhood friends in Korea reuniting after 20 years as adults in New York. The film explores the meaning of life and relationships amidst the twisted fate. It is a debut film directed by Celine Song, who also wrote the screenplay based on her autobiographical story.

Since a significant portion of the movie was filmed in Korea and most of the dialogue is in Korean, it is closer to saying it is a Korean movie.

Director Song’s father is a well-known director. Her father is Song Neung Han, who directed No. 3 (1997) starring Han Suk Kyu and Choi Min Sik.

Past Lives will compete for Best Picture at the Academy Awards against nine other films: Oppenheimer, Barbie, American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Maestro, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Poor Things, and The Zone of Interest.

Korean-American actress Greta Lee plays the leading role of Nora, who immigrated to Canada at 12, and Korean actor Teo Yoo plays Hae Sung, who longs for his first love, Nora, and desperately seeks her out.

Past Lives premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January last year and garnered attention before being invited to the Berlin International Film Festival competition section in February.

It was also nominated for awards at the Golden Globe Awards but didn’t take home any wins.

It is currently nominated for Best Actor, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Original Screenplay at the British Academy Awards.

In addition, it has won Best Picture at the Gotham Awards, an American independent film and drama awards ceremony, and the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, among other regional film festivals in the U.S.

On the movie rating site Rotten Tomatoes, it currently has an average score of 96% from critics.