{"id":30868,"date":"2026-05-22T09:24:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T06:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/?post_type=guests&#038;p=30868"},"modified":"2026-05-22T09:24:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T06:24:20","slug":"susan-seidelman","status":"publish","type":"guests","link":"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/en\/guests\/susan-seidelman\/","title":{"rendered":"Susan Seidelman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Director, producer, screenwriter and a respected teacher in her field, Susan Seidelman was born on 11 December 1952 in Abington, Pennsylvania, grew up in Philadelphia and studied fashion and the arts at the local Drexel University. Her move to New York would later form the geographical foundation for both her films and her identity. Cinephilia truly sparked through encounters at university with classics of the French New Wave and the Nordic dramas of Ingmar Bergman. European influences, including Lina Wertm\u00fcller and Agn\u00e8s Varda, would continue to resonate strongly. Seidelman\u2019s short film debut, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And You Act Like One Too<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a satirical story of a housewife\u2019s ex-marital affair, already attracted well-deserved attention.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Her debut feature <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/en\/movies\/smithereens\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smithereens <\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(1982) startles with its unapologetic roughness, the stark streetscapes of East Village, the hazy afterglow of the punk era and its exceptional protagonist Wren (Susan Berman). As a point of comparison for the character\u2019s distinctly shabby mode of existence, one might mention Mona from Varda&#8217;s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vagabond<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">198<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">5). Seidelman\u2019s artistic, commercial and international breakthrough <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/en\/movies\/desperately-seeking-susan\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Desperately Seeking Susan<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1985) prised open the doors of Hollywood, though the position of women directors remained highly challenging in the mid-1980s dream factory with its worship of oiled male muscles and toxic masculinity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The New Wave screwball comedy<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/en\/movies\/desperately-seeking-susan\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Desperately Seeking Susan<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> grew into a pop-cultural phenomenon, a cult classic and a respected landmark of feminist cinema. Not forgetting her underground roots, Seidelman continued to create surprising genre hybrids, like the romantic AI comedy <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/en\/movies\/making-mr-right\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Making Mr. Right<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1987), in which an android falls in love with a PR woman, the father-daughter mafia film <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cookie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1989); the emancipated revenge story <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/en\/movies\/she-devil\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She-Devil <\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(1989), the Euro-mystery <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gaudi Afternoon<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2001), reshuffling gender roles, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Boynton Beach Club<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2005), a portrait of senior citizens seeking companionship, the wheelchair patients&#8217; dance-competition romance <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Musical Chairs<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2011); and the sports comedy The <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hot Flashes<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2013), about a middle-aged women\u2019s basketball team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Her artistic hallmarks include strong female ensembles, aesthetic playfulness, an outsider perspective, broad age ranges, and an almost anthropological worldview in which the everyday cosmos appears as a changing organism and a mischievous playground. Seidelman\u2019s women do not live on the verge of nervous breakdowns, but at least permanently on their toes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In her 2024 memoir <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers and Material Girls<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the director humorously recounts one of the \u201clow points\u201d of her career: a Disney television film in which the former Oscar nominee had to direct a chimpanzee. Yet the industry\u2019s perpetual ebb and flow was reflected in the success that lay behind another door: directing the 1997 pilot for the soon-to-be-iconic<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Sex and the City<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite her studio productions, Seidelman still proudly considers herself an independent New Yorker filmmaker. She is a genuine trailblazer, instinctively drawn to places where something new is beginning: the first films of Madonna and Roseanne, Rosanna Arquette\u2019s breakthrough role, Meryl Streep\u2019s first comedy and countless other actors, innovations and phenomena now firmly established by name&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We warmly welcome this American auteur with a singular voice to the land of the midnight sun!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Lauri Timonen<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Director, producer, screenwriter and a respected teacher in her field, Susan Seidelman was born on 11 December 1952 in Abington, Pennsylvania, grew up in Philadelphia and studied fashion and the arts at the local Drexel University. Her move to New York would later form the geographical foundation for both her films and her identity. Cinephilia&#8230; <a class=\"view-article\" href=\"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/en\/guests\/susan-seidelman\/\">View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":30866,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30868","guests","type-guests","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Susan Seidelman &#8212; Midnight Sun Film Festival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Director, producer, screenwriter and a respected teacher in her field, Susan Seidelman was born on 11 December 1952 in Abington, Pennsylvania, grew up in Philadelphia and studied fashion and the arts at the local Drexel University. Her move to New York would later form the geographical foundation for both her films and her identity. Cinephilia truly sparked through encounters at university with classics of the French New Wave and the Nordic dramas of Ingmar Bergman. European influences, including Lina Wertm\u00fcller and Agn\u00e8s Varda, would continue to resonate strongly. Seidelman\u2019s short film debut, And You Act Like One Too, a satirical story of a housewife\u2019s ex-marital affair, already attracted well-deserved attention.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/en\/guests\/susan-seidelman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Susan Seidelman &#8212; Midnight Sun Film Festival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Director, producer, screenwriter and a respected teacher in her field, Susan Seidelman was born on 11 December 1952 in Abington, Pennsylvania, grew up in Philadelphia and studied fashion and the arts at the local Drexel University. Her move to New York would later form the geographical foundation for both her films and her identity. Cinephilia truly sparked through encounters at university with classics of the French New Wave and the Nordic dramas of Ingmar Bergman. European influences, including Lina Wertm\u00fcller and Agn\u00e8s Varda, would continue to resonate strongly. 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