Smithereens

We are pleased to partner with our friends from the Frenchtown Bookshop to host director Susan Seidelman and film critic Carrie Rickey for an in-theater conversation and book signing of Seidelman's new memoir Desperately Seeking Something. Presented alongside a screening of Seidelman's 1982 film SMITHEREENS.

The eccentric heroine at the center of director Susan Seidelman's debut feature is committed to being famous. Wren has the look, the drive, and endless time to infiltrate the punk scene -- the only trouble is she hasn't quite figured out the talent. She couch surfs and drifts through the graffitied streets of the East Village over an energetic soundtrack by The Feelies. A definitive entry in punk filmmaking, Seidelman captures the gritty glam heartbeat of the East Village in the 1980s in a way no other filmmaker can. Rated R.

The Frenchtown Bookshop will be on-site selling signed copies of the new book. Books are also available for pre-purchase and may be picked up at the event. Preorder your copy here ››

About Susan Seidelman
Susan Seidelman began her directorial career in the 1980s when her low budget film SMITHEREENS became the first American Independent film ever accepted into the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Susan’s next endeavor DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (starring Madonna and Rosanna Arquette) was a critical and commercial success that helped launch the screen careers of many emerging actors of that time, including Aidan Quinn, Laurie Metcalf and John Turturro. The film premiered at Cannes in 1985 and was nominated for a French “Cesar” for Best Foreign Film.

Seidelman went on to direct several other films including John Malkovich and Ann Magnuson in the sci-fi comedy MAKING MR. RIGHT; Peter Falk, Emily Lloyd and Dianne Wiest in the father-daughter mafia tale, COOKIE; Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep (in Streep’s first comedic movie role) in SHE DEVIL.  In 1994, Seidelman’s film, THE DUTCH MASTER, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Dramatic Short.

Directing the pilot and early episodes of HBO’s hit series SEX AND THE CITY are among the highlights of Seidelman’s TV career.

Susan’s memoir Desperately Seeking Something is coming out in June 2024 from MacMillan Publishing.

About Carrie Rickey
Carrie Rickey is film critic emerita of The Philadelphia Inquirer. She wrote about art for Artforum, Art in America, and Hyperallergic and about film for The Village Voice, Film Comment, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. She has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Drexel University, and the University of Pennsylvania. She won a regional Emmy for producing Before Hollywood, and an L.A. Press Club award for a series on female filmmakers. In August 2024 Norton will publish Rickey's biography, A Complicated Passion: The Life and Work of Agnes Varda.

About the Book
The funny and insightful first-person story of the trailblazing movie director of the 80s and 90s whose fearless punk drama, SMITHEREENS became the first American indie film to compete at Cannes, and smash hit DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN  led to a four-decade career in film.

Raised in the safe cocoon of 1960s suburbia, Susan Seidelman wasn’t a misfit, an oddball, or an outlier. She was a “good-girl” with a little bit of “bad” hidden inside. A restless teenager, she dreamed of escape and reinvention, a theme that would play out in her films as well as in her own life. Because she loved stories, a high school guidance counselor suggested she become a librarian, but she had her sights set further afield. In 1973, she left the Philly suburbs, enrolled at NYU’s burgeoning graduate film school and moved to NYC’s Lower East Side. There, she found herself in the right place at the right time. New York City was falling apart, but out of that chaos came a burst of creative energy whose effects are still felt in American pop culture today. Downtown became a vibrant playground where film, music, performance and graffiti art cross-pollinated and where Seidelman chronicled the lives of the colorful misfits, oddballs, dreamers and schemers she met there.

It’s all in DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING. Seidelman not only has a keen perspective on the times she’s lived through -- from her Twiggy-obsessed girlhood, through the Women’s Lib movement of the early 70s, the punk scene of the late 70s, Madonna-mania of the 80s, to the dot-com “greed is good” 90s, and beyond--she tells great stories.

Director Susan Seidelman

Cast Susan Berman, Brad Rijn, Richard Hell

Country USA

Language English

Aspect 1.66

More info on IMDB ››