Seligman was born on May 3, 1995, inToronto, Ontario, to aJewish 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 aReformAshkenazicommunity in Toronto and attendedNorthern Secondary School there. Herbat mitzvah ceremony was held onMasada inIsrael; the party that followed, held in 2008, was filmmaker-themed.[1][3] She grew up watchingAt the Movies with Ebert & Roeper wanting to "beRoger Ebert."[4] As a teenager, Seligman ran a now-defunct blog calledConfessions of a Teenage Film Buff and contributed film reviews toThe Huffington Post,[5][6] including a review forSpring Breakers, which she wrote at seventeen years old.[1] During high-school she was a part 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 atNew 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 filmShiva Baby.[2] Seligman remained in New York after graduating and interned with the production companyAnimal Kingdom.[11] She moved to Los Angeles in early 2021.[12]
While atNYU, she made short films includingLonewoods,Void, and her senior thesis film,Shiva Baby. During this time, Seligman also interned at a variety of production studios. She also served on theToronto 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 for2018 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 afeature, where Sennott would reprise her lead role.[15][16] It was Sennott's unique style of comedy and knack for uncomfortable humor that transformedShiva 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 ofShiva Baby was set to premiere at2020 South by Southwest, but the premiere was cancelled due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[19] Seligman says she finished the feature around half an hour before the festival was cancelled.[20] The film eventually premiered at the2020 Toronto International Film Festival.[21]
Shiva Baby was met with critical acclaim. Kristy Puchko ofThe Playlist wrote, "It's astounding this is Seligman's first film, [considering] how masterfully she orchestrates the tension and comedy,"[22] and Dana Piccoli forQueer Media Matters praised that "while Seligman is still a relative newcomer to the film world, she handlesShiva Baby like an experienced pro."[23] In 2022, the film won theJohn Cassavetes Award fromFilm Independent, at the time designated for productions with budgets of $500,000 or less.[b][24] In an interview withThe 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 withRachel Sennott for her second feature film,Bottoms, ateen 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-songwriterCharli XCX.[26] To promoteBottoms, Seligman appeared on the cover ofNew York Magazine with the films' stars Rachel Sennott andAyo Edebiri. The film headlined theSXSW film festival on March 11, 2023.[27] Aisha Harris ofNPR 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 asBring It On,Mean Girls, andBut I’m a Cheerleader to ‘60s and ‘70s Americana classics likeGrease andAmerican Graffiti. Seligman says the setting took inspiration fromFerris Bueller’s Day Off,[20] meanwhile the tone and raunchy comedy style came from movies likeSuperbad andAmerican Pie.[29] The fight club element was inspired by movies likeKick-Ass andScott Pilgrim vs the World, where the protagonists go on a hero's journey to get the girl.[7]
While working onBottoms, Seligman found mentorship inJason Reitman andElizabeth 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 for 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 writingShiva 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 inBottoms, 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]
InShiva 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 asbisexual, but as of 2023 considers herself "justgay".[30] Seligman briefly moved toLos Angeles in 2021, but resides inBushwick as of 2023.[31][19]
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 areYentl,Keeping the Faith,Fiddler on the Roof,Kissing Jessica Stein,Crossing Delancey andA Serious Man. Reflecting on these influences, she has stated, “Looking back, I don't know how my Jewish film journey, howShiva Baby, would have come about without those movies, or what it would have been like without them laying the groundwork."[1]
^Harris, Ben (July 12, 2021)."36 Under 36 2021".jewishweek.timesofisrael.com.Archived from the original on December 30, 2021. RetrievedDecember 30, 2021.
^Chlotrudis Society (2022)."2022, 28th Annual Awards".Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film.Archived from the original on February 12, 2022. RetrievedFebruary 12, 2022.
