One of the most purely entertaining films of the year thus far is writer-director Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby, led by Rachel Sennott and set in an intense single day through the perspective of a woman still finding her footing in life as she must contend with family, friends, and past acquaintances at a shiva. With the film now available digitally, the director and actress duo have already announced their next project.
THR reports Seligman will write and direct the sex comedy Bottoms, which Sennott will lead. The film will follow “two unpopular queer girls who start a fight club to have sex before their high school graduation.” Backed by MGM’s Orion Pictures and Max Handelman’s Brownstone Productions, there’s not a timetable yet on when production may begin, but considering the immediate success of Shiva Baby, hopefully it’s not too far off.
“I met Emma when I auditioned for the short, which was her thesis film. I did a ton of those when I was in school,” Sennott recently told us. “Emma saw me in another thesis film, and then one of her producers reached out and asked me to audition. After the short, we became really good friends. We went to South by Southwest for the short in 2018 and it was so fun. Then we started working on this feature together. So, it felt like this very natural process where as she was writing the feature version of Shiva, she would send it to me, and we would talk about the character. I felt really lucky to have this unique experience of being in the short and then watching it grow into a feature version.”
For more Shiva Baby fun, on April 17 at 9pm ET, join Seligman on our April edition of Cinephile Game Night. See more details