At ten, filmmaker Alexandra Shiva lost her mother Susan to cancer – a diagnosis her mother had kept hidden from virtually everyone. 36 years later, as Alexandra is set to outlive her mother, she embarks on a cinematic journey to understand her mother and explore the mother-daughter bond through its absence. Using a treasure trove of personal belongings, including nearly a century of home movies, photographs, datebooks and letters, the film offers a glimpse into a bygone era of Hollywood and New York glamor, while peeling back the layers of a life to reveal a poetic meditation on memory, loss and motherhood.
Alexandra begins the process of reconstructing her mother by pouring over the contents of dozens of boxes that her father saved for decades, too painful to view until now, and interviewing those who knew her best. She confronts dueling images of her mother—the glamorous daughter of Hollywood royalty known for her legendary parties and travel agency, standing in stark contrast to the dying mother hiding her illness. As Alexandra struggles to reconcile these versions of her mother and understand her secrecy, she is unexpectedly diagnosed with breast cancer—the same disease that killed her mother. Now in the middle of cancer treatment and a mother of two, she finds herself navigating the very same parenting challenges that her mother once faced.
While Alexandra’s story develops, a more complex picture of Susan emerges. Through dusty contact sheets and piles of old letters, we meet Susan as a rebellious young woman traveling the world, yearning to defy her parents. Photos and journal entries also reveal the enduring presence of Susan’s hand puppet named Hermine. Alexandra discovers that the playful puppet she knew as a child was not just a toy, but a tool her mother had relied on to express herself for years. Unable to communicate with her parents, Susan used Hermine to say what she couldn’t. A surprising family history of isolation, assimilation and alienation begins to surface. How did first-generation Americans, born to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, come to celebrate Easter in Beverly Hills? What was real and what was art-directed? And how do complicated family dynamics reverberate out over generations?
Over the course of the film, Alexandra gets to know the parts of Susan she never knew existed, while beginning to make peace with the parts she could never understand. By exploring this foundational mother-daughter bond even in its absence, HER/MINE offers a beautiful and moving portrait of what it means to be a mother and the lasting impact of family.
