In the woods of rural Massachusetts, one of the last clock companies in the US holds together through kinship, curiosity, and a shared disbelief in time itself.
Set in a rural Massachusetts workshop, this short documentary offers an intimate portrait of one of the last remaining clock restoration companies in the United States. Surrounded by quiet woodlands, the steady ticking that fills the workshop becomes a meditation on how humans shape, hold, and release time — an unending dialogue between motion and stillness, precision and wonder.
At the center of the film are James, Bob, Stefani, Christian, Tick Tock, and Donna — a small team of locals keeping the rhythms of a nearly vanished trade alive. Anchored around their unique perspectives on time, TIME PIECE is a love letter to the everyday philosopher. James, the company’s one of a kind and founder, started the Clockworks almost twenty years ago, bringing in generations of his family to sustain a craft that once defined this corner of Southern New England. Once a thriving hub of American clockmaking, the region now bears the quiet traces of economic decline. Yet inside this workshop, James’ humor, curiosity, and unorthodox approach shape the rhythms of the space. Although the clock was invented to control labor, the team moves through their days with loosened notions of time — some arrive at dawn, others at noon— guided less by schedule than by instinct, devotion, and a shared love of craft. Through their reflections and gestures, the film becomes a meditation on the fluidity of time, the intimacy of making, and the quiet beauty of shared labor.
Sarah Ema Friedland’s work is rooted in nonfiction, but uses the vocabulary of speculative fiction and fantasy to tweak and reimagine reality. Her films have screened at Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, DCTV, Hot Docs Cinema, PBS, and Cannes Film Festival Doc Corner Pitch. They have been supported by grants and fellowships from Jerome, Paul Newman, Ford, NYSCA, the Palestine American Research Center, the LABA House of Study, and MacDowell. She was named one of the “Top 10 Independent Filmmakers to Watch” by the Independent Magazine, is a recipient of the Paul Robeson award, and was nominated for a New York Emmy. Her feature documentary LYD, co-directed with Rami Younis, premiered at the 2023 Amman International Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary and the FIPRESCI. Her films have been covered by Variety, The New York Times, Filmmaker Magazine, Screen Slate, Hyperallergic, and The Brooklyn Rail. She has written for Millennium Film Journal and Filmmaker Magazine. She was the founding Director of the MDOCS Storyteller’s Institute at Skidmore College and is currently a Clinical Associate Professor at NYU Liberal Studies, where she directs the Global Media Lab. She is a member of the Meerkat Media Collective.
