Céline Cousteau

Céline S. Cousteau (born June 6, 1972) is a socio-environmental advocate and public figure. She is known for her work as a documentary film director, producer, explorer, artist, public speaker, brand ambassador, designer, author, and wellness workshop facilitator. She has been a panelist at the United Nations in New York, speaks on stage to audiences around the world, and has interviewed many prominent figures including President Lasso of Ecuador. She is the Founder/Director of CauseCentric Productions and previously Co-founder/ Chairman of the Board of the Outdoor Film Fellowship. She is the daughter of ocean explorer and filmmaker Jean-Michel Cousteau, and granddaughter of Jacques Cousteau.
Cousteau is the third generation of the Cousteau family of explorers. She was born in California to Jean-Michel Cousteau, a documentary-filmmaker and environmental advocate, and Anne-Marie Cousteau, an expedition photographer. She is the sister of Fabien Cousteau, an ocean explorer and shark advocate, and granddaughter of pioneering ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau. She grew up in their family homes in France and the United States.
Cousteau spent some of her youth aboard her grandfather's research vessel the Calypso with her family. One of her major expeditions on board was at age nine when she journeyed to the Amazon. The expedition lasted 18 months of which she spent 2 weeks navigating its coastal and jungle waters in areas that were still largely unknown to the outside world. It was through this experience that Cousteau began to learn about the interconnectedness of not only the environment, but humanity. She has spent her life dedicated to understanding the human "tribe" and the relationships forged between individuals, communities and ecosystems; this has been the inspiration behind her films, artworks and activism.
She has one son with her partner Çapkin van Alphen, an Australian cameraman.
Cousteau attended the Norfolk Academy in Virginia and the United Nations International School in New York City, and graduated from Skidmore College in 1994, where she majored in psychology and minored in studio art. She received her master's degree in International and Intercultural Management from the School for International Training. She received an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Aveiro.
Cousteau is the founder and CEO of CauseCentric Productions. CauseCentric Productions produces and distributes multi-media content with an emphasis on short films to amplify the voices and communicate the stories of solution focused grassroots organizations and individuals working on environmental and socio-cultural issues. She also the co-founded of the Outdoor Film Fellowship, formerly the Céline Cousteau Film Fellowship, a film fellowship program that existed for 3 years equipping young filmmakers, creatives, and activists to motivate change through storytelling.
Cousteau released her first feature documentary, Tribes on Edge, in 2019. She first went to the Vale do Javari Indigenous territory in the Brazilian Amazon in 2007 as part of a documentary for PBS, "Return to the Amazon". In 2010, the Indigenous Peoples of that land asked her asked her to come back and tell their story to the world. There she spent time with tribes of the Vale do Javari, Brazilian Amazon whose existence has increasingly become threatened by the modern world.