Celine Held

Celine Held’s filmography is honestly a trip through the gritty, raw edges of human experience. She doesn’t really mess around with sugarcoating stuff. In “Caroline” (2018), she dives right into a story that’s equal parts heart-wrenching and tense—a young girl, basically left to fend for herself, navigating a world that's way more complicated than any kid should have to handle. You watch it and it's like, damn, this is real. The camera lingers, the moments stretch, and you can almost feel the heat coming off the asphalt. Then there’s “Topside” (2020). This one’s wild in a totally different way. Set in the underbelly of New York City, it follows a mother and her daughter scraping by in the forgotten tunnels beneath the city—literally underground. There’s this claustrophobic vibe, like you’re trapped down there with them, dodging danger and hoping for some kind of sunlight. It’s not just survival, it’s about love, desperation, and the lengths people go to just to stay together. And yeah, “Lockdown” (2019) kind of rounds out her style—tense, real, unflinching. She has this knack for getting right up in your face with the characters’ struggles, never letting you look away. Every film feels like a punch to the gut, but somehow you’re still rooting for these people. Celine Held doesn’t do fairy tales—she’s all about raw, messy reality, and honestly, she pulls it off like few others in the indie scene.