	Seidelman was raised in a suburb of Philadelphia, the oldest daughter of a Jewish 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.