A Common Thread

Claire is seventeen and works a supermarket till. She finds out she is pregnant, tells nobody, and decides to give birth anonymously. She leaves the job and turns to the thing she has always done for love, embroidery, taking an apprenticeship with Madame Mélikian, who embroiders for haute couture. Mélikian has recently lost her son. The two women work at the same table for hours without speaking, and whatever grows between them is built out of the work rather than out of talk. Éléonore Faucher's first film took the Critics' Week Grand Prize and the screenplay award at Cannes in 2004. Lola Naymark plays Claire, Ariane Ascaride plays Mélikian.