Fresh from NYU, Seligman tells IndieWire how she explored bisexuality, sex work and the empowerment of dark and funny Jewish lenses in her impressive first feature film.
If your first movie is like your firstborn son, the saying goes that it takes a lot of effort to make a movie. Especially when you have just left film school, just 24 years old and working on a tight independent budget. Outside, Emma Seligman’s “Shiva Baby” employs many brands from the independent film: it is set in one day, filmed in one location and features a performance by a relative newcomer, comedian Rachel Sennott. But, behind the scenes, there were other forces exclusive to the independent film: a network of women – producers, actresses and other filmmakers – supporting Seligman at every step.
Darkly funny and pulsating with the energy of a new voice, “Shiva Baby” follows university student Danielle (Sennott) on the day she meets her sugar daddy Max (Danny Deferrari) in a family shiva. Standing between Danielle and her bagel and smoked salmon are two suffocating Jewish parents (played perfectly by Fred Melamed and Polly Draper), inevitable comparisons to an ex-friend and adventure (Molly Gordon), and her own anxiety, doubt and fragile construction of sexual empowerment.
As Danielle frantically tries to dodge Max, the sugar baby element adds a funny layer of stress to the shiva. It is a gloomy feminist turnaround for the already humorous and exclusively Jewish spectacle of people snooping and kibbling over someone’s literal body (no one seems to care who).
When Seligman wrote the short film that would debut on SXSW last year and lead to the appeal, “sweetening” was so common at NYU that it was totally normal for Seligman and his friends to have accounts on Buscando Arrangements, a site that combines generous older men with young women. Although she herself only went out one day, it made her think about the limits of the so-called “sexual empowerment” for young women.
Emma Seligman, director of “Shiva Baby”
Photo courtesy of Emma McIntyre
“What attracted me was the element of power, which – for me – I found was not real,” said Seligman during a recent interview with IndieWire. “At the time, I was realizing that the only power I had in my life that formed my self-esteem was sexual validation or my ‘sexual power’. … It became the basis of what the film was about: a young woman realizing she had no power and leaving the little girl her parents saw her and the sexually independent version of herself that she had introduced to her sugar daddy clash. “
Aided by Ariel Marx’s tense original soundtrack, the tastefully decorated walls gradually approach Danielle as these achievements hit her in waves. While “Shiva Baby” begins with a funny premise of sex work, it quickly becomes about Danielle’s post-college identity crisis. Seligman makes specialized use of a single location, the house in which the shiva is taking place, to turn the screws. She called Trey Edwards Shults “Krisha” an important point of reference.
“I watched ‘Krisha’ several times, and then I started watching movies about women driven by anxiety. It helped me create the real story of this woman having a nervous breakdown, ”she said. “I have shaped my experiences of shivas and strange family interactions around her day crumbling in front of her eyes and her power being eradicated from her. Just her losing control, basically, throughout the day. “
The well-woven script has attracted some famous talents, including Diana Agron, Jackie Hoffman, Melamed and Draper, who is so funny and accurate as Danielle’s mother that you would never know she is not Jewish. Although Seligman initially wanted a Jewish actress for the role, she said Draper practically “rigged her” to cast her.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she said of the opening meeting. “I was about 24 years old and thought, ‘Okay, whatever you want’. And then my casting director and producer got mad at me because we had an offer for our gajillionth person, and they said, ‘You can’t do that.’ And I was like, ‘Well, she just got me.’ “
Polly Draper in “Shiva Baby”
Utopia
It turns out that Draper – a filmmaker in his own right – had a much more insistent Jewish mother than Seligman expected. “She was very stubborn and improvised a lot,” said Seligman. “She and Debbie Offner got out of the van together in the morning and thought, ‘You shouldn’t have put us in the same van, because we created a whole new scene.'”
Although she thanked Draper for her contribution and says that this undoubtedly elevated the film, it was not always easy to say no. “I really didn’t know how to negotiate this,” she said. “It’s also a lot of imposter syndrome when you’re young and you’re in the first movie.”
She felt better after a stimulating conversation from her friend Annabelle Attanasio, who had recently sailed in similar territory with her debut in 2019, “Mickey and the Bear”. “After the first few days, I got over it,” said Seligman . “I was never really nervous from that moment on, but sometimes, I just didn’t know how to assert myself and I think that’s just something that probably comes with the experience over time.”
Judging by what she accomplished in “Shiva Baby”, Seligman had nothing to worry about. According to Danny Deferrari, who plays Max, she is wise beyond her age. “Emma is more mature and talented than the directors I worked with and who are over fifty years old. It is clear and extremely collaborative, ”said Deferrari. “She understands how the human condition metabolizes pain, trauma and stress into something cathartic and humorous.”
He added: “We laugh because it hurts. We laugh because it is true. Emma understands this. “
A Utopia release, “Shiva Baby” is now on select cinemas and VOD platforms.
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