The Cross Stitch

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SYNOPSIS

Sassy's Sewing Machine Repair sits idle, a fading echo from an antiquated era. Within the quiet store, Sassy surrounds herself with photographs of her estranged son, wiling away the hours by cross-stitching while her husband repairs machines in the back.

The days blend together, customers few and far between, but when a mysterious stranger enters the shop seeking work, he stirs up more than the static dust, forcing the shop owner to reexamine her stagnant life.

From writer/director Stacia Black comes an intimate drama exploring motherhood, modernity, and the danger of idealizing the past at the expense of living in the present.

RUNNING TIME - 13:15

DIRECTOR'S NOTE

THE CROSS-STITCH stemmed from the location, a locked sewing machine repair shop on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood, California. Living up the street, I passed the shop daily, always wondering how a perpetually closed place could stay afloat. From my initial musings, I imagined the type of person who would work in/own such a place, and thus, "Sassy" was born.

Several months after finishing the script, I drove by the shop and had a double-take, swerve-to-pull-over moment -- the lights were on and the sign flipped to "Open." It was then I learned the back-story. The original owner, a sewing machine repairman by trade, relocated to L.A. from NYC post-WWII. When he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in his declining years, his family locked the store, leaving it to sit like a mausoleum for five years.

The sewing machine repairman has since passed away, and a terrific chap named Larry has taken over the lease. Although Larry's presently selling off the parts and machines one by one, planning to eventually reopen as an eclectic antiques and used clothing store, he permitted our crew to converge on the shop, cleaning, moving, and set dressing the historic treasure trove until we unearthed Sassy's Shop, buried beneath the detritus, capturing a location that never really was, nor ever will be again.