Susan Seidelman (Born December 11, 1952) is an Oscar and Cesar Awards nominated 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 BBC. She-Devil (1989) starred Meryl Streep in her first starring comedic film role and Roseanne Barr in her first feature-film role. 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. Career Early 1980s Seidelman made her feature-film debut with Smithereens (1982), a bleak and darkly humorous look at New York City's downtown Bohemian scene of the 1980s. It was shot on 16mm for $40,000 on location, at times "guerrilla style" on the streets and in the subways of New York. Smithereens captured the look of the post-punk music scene and was the first American independent film to be selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival. With recognition from Cannes, Seidelman became a member of the first wave of 80s-era independent filmmakers in the American cinema. 1985–1999 Seidelman's second theatrical film Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), featuring then-rising star Madonna, was a major box-office and critical success, launching the careers of co-stars Rosanna Arquette and Aidan Quinn and introducing a new generation of actors and performers