Silver had to forge her own way in the 1970s and 1980s, including with her first feature, Hester Street. “The 1975 independent film … was the story of a Jewish immigrant couple in the 1890s. The low-budget black and white film, in Yiddish with English subtitles, proved a hard sell to studios.” But it won rave reviews, made money, and earned Carol Kane, who was 21 at the time, an Oscar nomination. – Variety
