Susan Seidelman

Susan Seidelman (born December 11, 1952) is an American film director, producer, and writer. She first came to notice with Smithereens (1982), the earliest American independent feature to be screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Her next feature, Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), co-starred Madonna in her first film, and was named as one of 100 greatest films directed by women by the BBC; it resulted in a Cesar Award nomination. She-Devil (1989) starred Meryl Streep in her first starring comedic film role and Roseanne Barr in her first feature-film role. Her work on the short film The Dutch Master resulted in an Academy Award nomination. Seidelman's subsequent films mix comedy with drama, blending genres and pop-cultural references with a focus on women protagonists, particularly outsiders. She also works in television and directed the pilot episode of Sex and the City. Early life and education Seidelman was born on December 11, 1952 in Abington, Pennsylvania and raised in a suburb of Philadelphia, the oldest daughter of a hardware manufacturer and a teacher. She graduated from Abington Senior High School in 1969, and studied fashion and arts at Drexel University in Philadelphia. After taking a film appreciation class where she was inspired by the French New Wave, particularly the films of Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, as well as Ingmar Bergman, she switched her focus to filmmaking. Her first foray into movie-making at New York University resulted in a Student Academy Award Nomination for her satirical short film about a housewife's affair, And You Act Like One Too. Seidelman earned an MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and is an adjunct professor in the school's film department, overseeing students' thesis films.