In the past three decades, the New York-based experimental filmmaker and photographer Shelly Silver (*1957) has created more than twenty short films and medium-length movies. Her work blends narrative and documentary style in a way that is unique. “The active pleasure I get in refusing to abide by the rules of genres is clear from my first films”, Silver says. She delicately examines the borders between the public and the private. In Former East/Former West (1994), her interviews with citizens of Berlin, filmed shortly after its unification, highlight individual perspectives on the historic event and at the same time serve as contemporary documents thereof. In What I’m Looking For (2004), Silver questions the relationship between photographer and subject by capturing images “based on the desire of those in front of the camera”. Her poetic observations culminate in her astute and often humorous cinematic narratives about friendship, love, and individual freedom.