External links
- Emma Seligman at IMDb
- Emma Seligman on Letterboxd
- Emma Seligman on Rotten Tomatoes
- Emma Seligman on MUBI
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Emma Seligman | |
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| Born | May 3, 1995 Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Alma mater | New York University |
| Occupation(s) | Screenwriter, Director |
Emma Seligman (born May 3, 1995) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. She [a] is best known for the films Shiva Baby (2020) and Bottoms (2023).
Seligman was born on May 3, 1995, in Toronto, Ontario, to a Jewish family. [1] She and her sister were the youngest of their generation with a large extended family, so she went to lots of Jewish family functions growing up. [2] She was raised in a Reform Ashkenazi community in Toronto and attended Northern Secondary School there. Her bat mitzvah ceremony was held on Masada in Israel; the party that followed, held in 2008, was filmmaker-themed. [1] [3] She grew up watching At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper wanting to "be Roger Ebert." [4] As a teenager, Seligman ran a now-defunct blog called Confessions of a Teenage Film Buff and contributed film reviews to The Huffington Post , [5] [6] including a review for Spring Breakers , which she wrote at seventeen years old. [1] During high-school she was apart of TIFF Next Wave, a group of 12 Toronto kids who host a mini film festival each year. In her senior year she directed a one-act play, which helped her realize she wanted to be a director. [7] She studied film at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in May 2017. [8] [9] She greatly values the friendships she made while studying there, saying that, “My connections with my peers ended up being so much more vital to my career progressing than connections to any bosses. I had a million internships, and none of them wanted to make my first movie.” [10] During her time at NYU Seligman briefly tried out being a sugar baby, going on one date before deciding it wasn’t for her. This experience would later inspire her first feature film Shiva Baby. [2] Seligman remained in New York after graduating and interned with the production company Animal Kingdom. [11] She moved to Los Angeles in early 2021. [12]
While at NYU, she made short films including Lonewoods, Void, and her senior thesis film, Shiva Baby. During this time, Seligman also interned at a variety of production studios. She also served on the Toronto International Film Festival's select youth committee, where she helped program films for the festival. [13] [14]
Her thesis short film, Shiva Baby, was selected for 2018 South by Southwest film festival. The film follows Danielle as she attends a Shiva with both her ex-girlfriend and sugar daddy in attendance. During her time at NYU Seligman tried sugaring briefly, and has said of the experience that, “You have this sort of awakening of like, oh my God, I don’t have any power in this world, but I do have my sexual power. And I think sugaring has allowed young women and young people to take hold of that to a higher degree,” [12] At the encouragement of the short film's star, Rachel Sennott, whom she befriended during the audition process, Seligman began developing it into a feature, where Sennott would reprise her lead role. [15] [16] It was Sennott's unique style of comedy and knack for uncomfortable humor that transformed Shiva Baby into more of a comedy than the original short film's intense dramedy approach. [17] Seligman also cited inspiration from the horror and thriller genres that helped to form the film's "claustrophobic look." [18] The feature-length version of Shiva Baby was set to premiere at 2020 South by Southwest, but the premiere was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [19] Seligman says she finished the feature around half an hour before the festival was cancelled. [20] The film eventually premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. [21]
Shiva Baby was met with critical acclaim. Kristy Puchko of The Playlist wrote, "It's astounding this is Seligman's first film, [considering] how masterfully she orchestrates the tension and comedy," [22] and Dana Piccoli for Queer Media Matters praised that "while Seligman is still a relative newcomer to the film world, she handles Shiva Baby like an experienced pro." [23] In 2022, the film won the John Cassavetes Award from Film Independent, at the time designated for productions with budgets of $500,000 or less. [b] [24] In an interview with The Upcoming in 2021 after the film's release, Seligman expressed her desire to continue to create complicated female characters and narratives, beyond the confines of being viewed as "messy," just as there are a plethora of complicated male characters on screen who are not given this designation. [17]
Seligman reunited with Rachel Sennott for her second feature film, Bottoms, a teen sex comedy in which two high school lesbians start a fight club in order to attract their cheerleader crushes. Seligman had the idea for the film while still at NYU, and began working on it with Sennott there. [19] She says she was inspired by her love for teen romantic comedies and sex comedies, while wanting to combine those elements with those of a superhero film or buddy comedy. [25] Bottoms was scored by English singer-songwriter Charli XCX. [26] To promote Bottoms, Seligman appeared on the cover of New York Magazine with the films' stars Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri. The film headlined the SXSW film festival on March 11, 2023. [27] Aisha Harris of NPR praised the film writing, "Sennott and Seligman strike both a sweet and an abrasive tone that's tricky to pull off, though they do so quite handily." [28] Seligman drew inspiration for the film from a plethora of different movies. From '90s-2000s high-school comedies such as Bring It On, Mean Girls , and But I’m a Cheerleader to ‘60s and ‘70s Americana classics like Grease and American Graffiti . Seligman says the setting took inspiration from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, [20] meanwhile the tone and raunchy comedy style came from movies like Superbad and American Pie. [29] The fight club element was inspired by movies like Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim vs the World , where the protagonists go on a hero's journey to get the girl. [7]
While working on Bottoms, Seligman found mentorship in Jason Reitman and Elizabeth Banks. They helped her work through the stress of directing such a large production as only her second feature film and at such a young age. Seligman shared that “It was helpful to hear that from people who has so much experience but also hard that all the feelings I was feeling, I could expect to feel forever" [7]
Shiva Baby explores themes of identity, family pressures, and male validation. Seligman has said that the search male validation is something she was going through in college when she was in a relationship with a ‘fuckboy’, the experience giving her material when writing Shiva Baby. [7]
Seligman's work often focuses on sexual themes, particularly women's relationship to sex. Regarding this choice, she has stated:
Women decode sexual messaging from a young age, from eight years old to twenty-two years old. They have to process what sex means, what it can do for them, what it should do for them, what they're supposed to do for it. Technology, for example with porn or dating sites, has made the sexual messaging more confusing, and I'm interested in how women figure it out. [8]
Seligman also focuses on queer themes in her films. Queerness plays a huge part in Bottoms, as both the main characters are lesbians who take on roles typically held by men. She says she feels like queer teens in TV and film are often not allowed to have sexual thoughts the way that straight teen movies talk about sex constantly. Seligman wanted to see more raunchy queer characters on screen, ones who are allowed to be flawed, selfish, and horny. [20]
In Shiva Baby these queer themes are seen through Danielle’s ex-girlfriend, Maya. When asked about this queer arc Seligman stated: [7]
"There were certainly friendships I had in high school that could have developed into the kind of relationship that Maya and Danielle had. And by the time I was writing the short I’d come out as queer, and I was thinking about having an ex to play off, who can give the audience a bit of intel about who Danielle is and what she’s like on an internal level, and then it was my professor’s idea to have the character also be a foil for all the things Danielle isn’t in this community, because I also wanted to show the amount of angst that she had about succeeding and being a good kid her parents weren’t disappointed in" [7]
She has stated that her filmmaking process as a very collaborative experience, and enjoys being able to discuss her work with her actors. [8]
As Seligman's career continues, she stated that she wants to continue making "weird" queer and Jewish stories on an increasingly larger scale. [25]
Seligman uses both "she/her" and "they/them" pronouns, and considers herself to be somewhere on the gender spectrum rather than identifying as trans or nonbinary. [12] She formerly identified as bisexual, but as of 2023 considers herself "just gay". [30] Seligman briefly moved to Los Angeles in 2021, but resides in Bushwick as of 2023. [31] [19]
Seligman has had a very Zionist upbringing [12] , and expressed dismay at the rise of antisemitic violence as well as support for Palestinians. [32] [33]
Being Ashkenazi, she is very invested in her Jewish faith and has said if she ever did switch careers she would likely become a rabbi. [12] Her favorite Jewish movies are Yentl, Keeping the Faith , Fiddler on the Roof, Kissing Jessica Stein , Crossing Delancey and A Serious Man . Reflecting on these influences, she has stated, “Looking back, I don't know how my Jewish film journey, how Shiva Baby, would have come about without those movies, or what it would have been like without them laying the groundwork." [1]
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Void [8] | Short film |
| 2018 | Shiva Baby [8] | Short film |
| 2020 | Shiva Baby [21] | Feature adaptation of 2018 short |
| 2023 | Bottoms | Feature film |
| Year | Association | Category | Work | Result | Ref(s). |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | South by Southwest | Best Narrative Short | Shiva Baby | Nominated | [34] [35] |
| 2020 | Denver Film Festival | American Independent Award | Shiva Baby | Special mention: New Comedic Voice | [36] |
| Filmmaker Magazine | 25 New Faces of Indie Film 2020 | Listed | [37] | ||
| Miami International Film Festival | Jordan Ressler First Feature Award | Nominated | [38] | ||
| Outfest | Best Screenwriting | Won | [39] | ||
| Out on Film | Best First Film | Runner-up | [40] | ||
| TIFF Critics Poll | Best Screenplay | Runner-up | [21] | ||
| Variety Presented at the Mill Valley Film Festival | 10 Screenwriters to Watch | Listed | [41] [42] | ||
| 2021 | The Braddies | Best Debut | Listed | [43] | |
| Chicago Film Critics Association | Milos Stehlik Breakthrough Filmmaker Award | Nominated | [44] | ||
| Detroit Film Critics Society | Breakthrough | Won [e] | [45] | ||
| Florida Film Critics Circle Awards | Best First Film | Nominated | [46] | ||
| Gotham Independent Film Awards | Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award | Nominated | [47] | ||
| Hollywood Critics Association Midseason Awards | Best Filmmaker | Nominated | [48] | ||
| Best Screenplay | Nominated | ||||
| IndieWire Critics Poll | Best First Feature | Fourth | [49] | ||
| The Jewish Week | 36 Under 36 | Listed | [50] [51] | ||
| The New York Times | Best Directing (Comedy) | Won | [52] | ||
| The ReFrame Stamp | Narrative Feature | Listed | [53] [54] | ||
| 2022 | Apolo Awards | Best New Director | Nominated | [55] | |
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Won | ||||
| Austin Film Critics Association | Best First Film | Nominated | [56] | ||
| Chlotrudis Society for Independent Films | Best Original Screenplay | Nominated | [57] | ||
| Directors Guild of America Awards | Outstanding Directing – First-Time Feature Film | Nominated | [58] | ||
| DiscussingFilm Critics Awards | Best Debut Feature | Nominated | [59] | ||
| Independent Spirit Awards | John Cassavetes Award | Won [f] | [60] | ||
| Online Film Critics Society Awards | Best Debut Feature | Nominated | [61] | ||
| Toronto Film Critics Association | Best First Feature | Runner-up [g] | [62] | ||
| 2023 | Indiana Film Journalists Association | Best Original Screenplay | Bottoms | Nominated [h] | [63] |
| Sidewalk Film Festival | Sidewalk Programmer's Feature Film Award | Won | [64] | ||
| SXSW | Headliners | Nominated | [65] | ||
| 2024 | Independent Spirit Awards | Best Screenplay | Nominated [i] | [66] | |
| Dorian Film Awards | Campy Flick of the Year | Nominated | [67] | ||
| LGBT Screenplay of the Year | Nominated | [68] | |||
| Critics Choice Awards | Best Comedy | Nominated | [69] | ||
| GLAAD Media Awards | Outstanding Film - Wide Theatrical Release | Won | [70] |
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