Marisa Silver was born on April 23, 1960, in Shaker Heights, New Jersey, to Raphael Silver, a film director and producer, and Joan Micklin Silver, a director. While taking classes in the early 1990s at Harvard University, Silver began writing short stories, but her interest in film turned her attention to directing and editing documentaries, including with Peter Davis, the Emmy-nominated “A Community of Praise,” a segment of the Middletown series for PBS, which profiled Christian fundamentalists. In 1992, she directed an episode of L. A. Law and Indecency, a film for television. She gained fame, however, at age twenty-four for her work in film, beginning with Old Enough, which she wrote and co-produced with her sister Dina in 1984. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival that year. Her directorial success continued with Permanent Record in 1988, Vital Signs in 1990, and He Said...