Cutting My Mother
Nathan Silver has been casting his mother, Cindy, in his independent feature films since 2012. And though Cindy always insists she’s “not an actress—I’m just your mother,” when Nathan cuts almost all her scenes from one of his movies, Cindy’s disappointment goes beyond a matter of simple creative differences. In this new documentary series, we follow Nathan and Cindy as they try to repair their relationship over the dinner table, at the synagogue, and, finally, on the set of a film where Nathan cedes the director’s chair to a promising new talent: his own mother.
Episodes
As her screen time in her son’s films is drastically reduced, Cindy starts to suspect Nathan no longer wants her in his movies—a rejection that brings her back to the insecurities of childhood, when she thought, “Why would anybody wanna watch me, or hear me, or see me?”
Hoping to make amends with his mother, Nathan visits his parents’ house upstate, where he pitches Cindy on a new creative project—one where she would be in control.
On her first day as the director of her own short film, Cindy exorcises a humiliation from her youth and gives it a triumphant new ending.
Cindy, fresh on the heels of her first experience as a film director, reviews the footage with Nathan. But she refuses to admit whether she enjoyed calling the shots: “If I say yes, then you’ll have me direct a whole movie!”
