Grains of Sand

Filmed over eight years, Grains of Sand accompanies the filmmaker's mother and mother-in-law, artists and close friends, as they enter their ninth decade. Through conversation, memories and artwork, they explore together the lifelong project of becoming oneself.

What does it mean to turn 80? The filmmaker invites her mother and mother-in-law to a working retreat in a stone farmhouse in the countryside. Margot and Barbara are friends, artists, and both on the cusp of their 9th decade. As they unpack the large stones they have brought to sculpt and begin to work on them, they embark on a conversation about creativity and aging. Over the course of eight years, they explore what it means to arrive at this stage of their lives and how their creativity, alive and well, is changing with the years.

Margot lives in San Francisco and Barbara in Hamburg. Interviews with the women in their studios and homes reveal their rich lives at the easel and also how they have grappled over the decades with societal expectations and personal development in their roles as daughters, wives, mothers, and independent women artists.

Once a year for the course of the film, the women meet back at the farmhouse. Here they continue work on their stones, reflect on changes and developments of the past year, and gather strength for the months which will follow.

Although the eight years of the film bring changes and, yes, further aging, Margot and Barbara remain ever-passionate about their art and life. They aren't looking back on their lives. They are living them.

Director and Producer: Sarah Gross