“Shiva Baby” began as a 2017 short film by NYU student Emma Seligman based in part on her upbringing as a queer Jewish woman. Now, she’s turned it into a feature film that has earned rave reviews on the festival circuit, including at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival.
Seligman joined the film’s cast — Rachel Sennott, Polly Draper, Molly Gordon and Dianna Agron — to discuss the film with TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman. Seligman said she first cast Sennott in the lead role for the 2017 short because she thought she looked Jewish…ironic considering that she isn’t.
“It’s a horrible thing to say! I don’t know, she had big, bushy eyebrows and long, curly hair and I thought that this is someone who looked like she could be in my family,” she said.