ATLFF & Plazadrome: DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN with Susan Seidelman
Plazadrome and the Atlanta Film Festival present: DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985) with director Susan Seidelman in person. We’ll have a book signing before the event with the director and author Marya E. Gates signing their books Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words and Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls before the screening. Saturday May 3rd 12pm: Cinema Her Way and Desperately Seeking Something book signings in The Atlanta Film Festival Green Room. 1pm: DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985) film screening followed by a Q&A between director Susan Seidelman and author Marya E. Gates. The vibrant films of Susan Seidelman center on women who buck against society’s expectations, forging their own paths through the world. Through rich characterizations and intricate world-building, her films explore themes of identity, ambition, sexuality, self-actualization, and personal transformation. Seidelman’s playful twists on genres like screwball comedy, sci-fi, mystery, and romance make her films endlessly rewatchable. -Marya E. Gates About DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985) If you know what to look for, you can find almost anything in the personal ads... including the love of your life! Rosanna Arquette (Pulp Fiction) is irresistible in her first starring role and pop star Madonna (Evita) gives a marvelously comic performance in this delightful madcap comedy about mistaken identity. Bored New Jersey housewife Roberta (Arquette) fills her days by reading the personals and following an ongoing romance between "Jim" and "Susan" (Madonna); mysterious drifters who appear to lead the kind of free-spirited lives she can only dream about. And dream she does, until the day she actually shows up at the couple's pre-arranged rendezvous in New York City... and after a bump on the head, a bout of amnesia turns her into Susan and opens the door to intrigue, laughter and love! Directed by Susan Seidelman (Making Mr. Right) with a stellar supporting cast that includes Aidan Quinn, Mark Blum, Robert Joy, Laurie Metcalf, Will Patton, Steven Wright, Peter Maloney, Giancarlo Esposito and John Turturro. About Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words From the birth of cinema in the 1890s to the global box office today, women directors have had to work hard to tell their stories. Although they make up a small percentage of current filmmakers, their contributions to the cinematic arts are both significant and unique. In revelatory conversations with international filmmakers, film critic and historian Gates shines a light on their career-spanning works. From feminist pioneers and maverick independents to Oscar-winning directors, these filmmakers include Jane Campion, Susan Seidelman, and Mira Nair. About Marya E. Gates With an expertise in silent film, film noir, and female directors, Marya E. Gates is a freelance film writer and critic based in Chicago. She has a BA in Comparative Literature and an MFA in film production.Before turning to writing full-time, she worked in social media marketing and editorial in the film industry. Her work has appeared in various film publications including Vulture, Indiewire, and Emmy Mag. About Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls 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. About Susan Seidelman: SUSAN SEIDELMAN, a graduate of NYU Grad Film School, began her career in the 1980s when Smithereens became the first American Independent film to be accepted into the Cannes Film Festival. Her next movie, Desperately Seeking Susan, starring Madonna and Rosanna Arquette, was a critical and commercial success. She has directed dozens of other films starring actors such as Meryl Streep, Brooke Shields, and Sally Field, as well as the first four episodes of Sex and the City. She lives in New Jersey.Drama | USAPT1H44MPG-132025-05-03Rosanna Arquette
Madonna
Aidan Quinn
Susan Seidelman
Sarah Pillsbury
Midge Sanford
ATLFF & Plazadrome: DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN with Susan Seidelman"ATLFF & Plazadrome: DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN with Susan Seidelman"ATLFF25Showtimes
May 3, 1:00 pm
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