A masterclass with French filmmaker and screenwriter Céline Sciamma, one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary European cinema, was held at the Bosnian Cultural Center. Moderated by French film curator Mathilde Henrot, the session focused on Sciamma’s artistic approach and the future of cinema in an era where technology allows authors to take the entire creative process into their own hands.
The masterclass featured a screening of her new film, TUTTI FRUTTI (France, 2026, 40 min.), created for the Centre Pompidou’s Où en êtes-vous?collection. Since 2022, Sciamma has used her own camera to record fragments of reality into a personal archive. This edited footage forms a film that functions simultaneously as a diary, a cinematic essay, and an exploration of independent filmmaking.
For Sciamma, TUTTI FRUTTI is both a title and a principle. She chose a playful, humorous name to strip away any sense of heavy importance.
“It contains the childlike joy of making a film and the feeling that creation is, above all, about play, discovery, and freedom. Unlike my carefully written screenplays, here I allowed the film to happen to me. Some images came before the story, and meaning emerged only during editing. I wanted to explore ‘accidental cinema’ – material without an initial purpose that finds new meaning through its encounter with other images. In working with archives, images begin to tell a different story,” she explained.
For Sciamma, sound is just as vital as the image. It drives and transforms each scene rather than just accompanying it. TUTTI FRUTTI begins and ends with birds – a motif serving as an emotional signal. Information, she believes, does not always need to be spoken; it can simply be sensed through atmosphere, rhythm, and sound.
This approach connects TUTTI FRUTTI to her deep interest in cinema as a language. Sciamma also spoke about a new generation of independent filmmakers who use the internet and accessible technology to create outside traditional production systems.
“The immediacy of this new generation encouraged me to try making a film almost entirely on my own. They bring something new that gives me hope for the future of cinematic language. Yet, this freedom did not mean leaving cinema behind. I miss cinema, and I always will, because I love it. Sometimes we realize how much we love something only when it is no longer there.”
Objects occupy a special place in her new film. Sciamma treats them as characters rather than mere decoration. In her view, the camera can give an ordinary object a soul and a sense of destiny, showing that cinema does not always need to rely on actors and plots.
TUTTI FRUTTI is also a film about disappearance. Sciamma incorporates archival images of women and lesbian activists, tracking social struggles in France and Italy. She explores the social role of cinema and what remains of people whose stories once existed on the margins. Through these women, she addresses the need for legacy, community, and belonging.
This idea of community shapes her entire filmography. From Water Lilies, Tomboy, and Girlhood to Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Petite Maman, Sciamma explores identity, memory, and the body from fresh perspectives. Portrait of a Lady on Fire won Best Screenplay and the Queer Palm at Cannes in 2019, while her earlier works screened in major sections at Cannes and Berlin.
Her career remains tied to representation and equality. As a co-founder of the French 50/50 movement, she has advocated for gender equality in film, while her creative work expands the female and queer gaze in modern cinema.
The Sarajevo masterclass ultimately became more than a look back at her career. It was a discussion on the act of looking, an object becoming a character, and a director rediscovering the childlike freedom of simply picking up a camera.
Between the past of cinema and its future lies her simple, powerful thought: “I love cinema.”
