Past Lives director shares scene that left her ‘crying in frustration’

Past Lives director Celine Song revealed she took a break to let loose her frustrations after a difficult day’s capturing.

Her acclaimed drama movie follows Korean-American lady Nora (performed by Greta Lee), who reconnects along with her childhood sweetheart Hae Sung (Teo Yoo).

Song was topped the winner of this 12 months’s London Sundance Audience Award after the Express sat down with the filmmaker to debate her stellar debut.

“There was a moment on set after we shot the scene where the children say goodbye to each other,” she recalled.

“And that moment was so funny… We were just getting used to the way the sun sets in Korea.”

While many of the drama takes place in present-day New York City, Past Lives flashes again to Nora and Hae Sung’s childhood, portrayed by younger actors Seung Ah Moon and Seung Min Yim.

Although these key scenes laid the groundwork for the central characters’ devastating friendship, Song struggled to familiarize yourself with the brand new location.

“My department heads, my [director of photography] – we had developed how to shoot this movie in New York,” she stated.

“And then, of course, we came to Korea and the lighting was different, the sun was different, everything about it was different. So we were all adjusting.”

At one level, the solar utterly threw the solid and crew off their recreation.

“We had a kind of a frustrating day,” Song admitted. “We couldn’t get the sun to move in the way we expected.

“So, me and my DP, we had a heart-to-heart moment about, ‘this is a really difficult day, we didn’t get what we wanted’.

“I was so overwhelmed with everything that once my DP left I was just sitting there crying.

“I was so upset about the shot I didn’t get. It didn’t look the way we wanted.

“And I could hear crew walking by, saying like, ‘Oh, Celine must be crying because she’s so moved!’

“And I was like, ‘No! It’s because of the sun!’”

Despite its difficult capturing situations, South Korea nonetheless gives a lovely backdrop for Past Lives’ heartwrenching early scenes.

The drama has additionally cemented Lee and Yoo as abilities to look out for, whereas Song is already engaged on her subsequent mission, Materialists, after her extraordinary debut.

Past Lives is exhibiting at Picturehouse Central in London on Sunday, July 16 and can be launched in cinemas on September 8.