THE DRESSMAKER

The Dressmaker unfolds across three generations of women with Sephardic Jewish roots in Bulgaria and Greece, two countries with longstanding animosity. During WWII Bulgaria became an ally to Germany, and occupied Northern Greece where many Sephardic Jews lived. When Bulgarian Jews were placed in ad-hoc ghettos in 1943, Stella Mashiah took her sewing machine with her. Her sewing skills helped her get through the war, and she became known among her friends as The Dressmaker. Soon after, she met and fell in love with Carlo, a Greek Jew, bringing into their daily lives the conflict that seized those two communities: Under public pressure, Bulgarian authorities had saved their own country’s Jews, but deported the Greek Jews of the occupied territories. Carlo was among the few who survived, although he lost most of his family. Today, at 92, Stella along with her daughter Shirley and granddaughter Estee seek answers into the family’s complex, unresolved history, after 70 years of silence.