Joan Micklin Silver

A consistently effective director, Joan Micklin Silver created films that have been noted for their emotional depth, fine acting (often by unknown performers) and deftly drawn characters. Born and raised in the Midwest, Silver graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and soon married. In 1967, she and her family moved from Ohio to NYC where she began her career writing educational films. Producer Linda Gottlieb hired Silver to work on the script about the wives of prisoners-of-war during the Vietnam era. The result "Limbo" (1972) was a modest feature, one of the first to confront repercussions of an unpopular war, but its overt melodrama undercut its intensity. Attempting to move behind the camera, Silver ran up against rejection; it was virtually unheard of a female working as a Hollywood director in the early 1970s. With her husband Raphael, Silver formed Midwest Film Productions. Her maiden effort behind the camera was the keenly observed immigrant tale, "Hester Street" (1975). Made for under $400,000 and rejected by distributors, the black-and-white feature was eventually released by Raphael Silver and earned $5 million as well as a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Carol Kane.