Sasha Hadden: A Stitch in Time director on filming in The Hills

The Hills - and in particular Dural - is set to star in forthcoming film A Stitch in Time. And it is unlikely to be the last film shot there, according to its director Sasha Hadden.

Galston High School graduate Sasha Hadden has followed his passion for filmmaking around the world.

But it was returning home to The Hills that spurred him on to create his debut feature-length film, ‘A Stitch in Time’.

In this interview with The Hills Shire Times, Sasha spoke about how his love for films all started in Dural and why he chose to shoot key scenes in The Hills Shire — including in his childhood bedroom and mum’s home.

Homegrown talent Sasha Hadden in action

“My passion for pursuing the craft of filmmaking it really started when I was about nine,” Sasha recalls.

Sasha was raised in Dural and belonged to a large family — eight kids in total.

“We didn’t have much money at all but my mum could see that I was pretty interested in (filmmaking),” Sasha said. “She got my older sister’s boyfriend to borrow money in order to buy me video equipment to make films, which she paid off”.

Looking back now, Sasha sees it as “pretty extraordinary … given that there was so many of us and we really didn’t have much money at all, that (his mum) went out of her way to try to support me.

“She obviously saw it was something I was pretty serious about it.”

Sasha in his childhood bedroom, directing of ‘A Stitch in Time’

Sasha recalls using this video equipment throughout his years at Galston High School, making short films throughout The Hills.

“I made this film called ‘Robert’ that won two awards … at (a) student film festival,” he remembers.

The exact details of the film escape Sasha now, but he does remember that it was do to with a character from the past who had travelled through time to find himself in the late 20th-century.

“For some reason, at the end of the film, he was going to explode (because) that’s how he would go back to his home,” Sasha said.

“And I really needed this to happen in this graveyard … (so) I wrote to the graveyard [it was at Dural Uniting Church Cemetery on Derriwong Road] and they came back and said ‘no, you actually can’t let off this bomb inside the graveyard’.”

This film also involved “a car chase through the back roads somewhere.”

A drone shot over Middle Dural from ‘A Stitch in Time’

After finishing his studies, Sasha travelled the world – working as a camera intern for a film directed by Mel Gibson in Hollywood, and he assisted the acclaimed director Roland Joffe for ‘The Scarlet Letter’.

But soon Sasha realised that he “missed home” and returned back to Sydney.

“I went through a long period of trying to develop myself as a writer because I failed English throughout school and so it was a real fear of mine,” Sasha admitted.

“One of my teachers once said, ‘isn’t it amazing we can’t think without words’ — and it really shocked me because I rarely think with words … (I’m a) visual thinker, an emotional thinker.”

Sasha also started swimming at the Hills Swim Club in Baulkham Hills.

“I took up swimming, which I feared as much as I feared writing … I confronted these two fears — my fear of English and my fear of swimming,” he said.

Eventually, Sasha went on to become a coach at this Swim Club: “It was very similar to (being a) director because you’re trying to communicate with someone what they’re supposed to do.”

Sasha Hadden and the Academy Award Nominee, Don McAlpine, filming in Middle Dural

When it came to making his first feature-length drama, Sasha knew that Sydney, in particular the Hills Shire, was the perfect location.

Sasha’s mum still lives in the Hills, so he visits her often.

All the interior shots in ‘A Stitch in Time’ are shot in his Sasha’s childhood home — he remembers the Shire as being “the centre of my world”.

A still from ‘A Stitch in Time,’ with the lead sitting on a road near Sasha’s childhood home in Dural

“One day, I was in the UK and I needed to get a visa to go to Canada to work on the Scarlet Letter, and the only way I could get a Visa was to come back to Australia to get it,” Sasha recalls.

“I did this crazy trip … I had to go from France to Australia to Nova Scotia in Canada.

“It was funny because Dural and the Hills district became a part of that trip … (and) suddenly home was the middle of my trip, instead of when you start out a trip from home and come back.

“I looked at it completely differently and it was really quite amazing … I think the best place might be home — there was just something incredibly beautiful about Sydney and Dural, and seeing it almost like an outsider for a moment.”

A scene from Sasha’s film, featuring Maggie Blinco, in Dural

Sasha thinks there is untapped potential for more films and TV series to be set in the Hills.

“The Hills District is amazing and because I have such intimate knowledge of where everything is, it was really easy for me to find these amazing locations,” Sasha said.

“It did dawn on me that … I don’t think a lot of people understand how complex the Hills District is.

“There’s parts of the Hills that are really developed — it is quite a diverse canvas to look at … (and) it’s just such a wonderful canvas to tell a story.”

A scene from ‘A Stitch in Time’ shot behind the Galston Country Club

Sasha told The Hills Shire Times that he feels so lucky to come from this part of Sydney.

“We were living in the best place in Australia, and I didn’t understand why anyone would want to live anywhere else,” Sasha said

‘A Stitch in Time’ releases nationwide on February 17 in Event and independent cinemas.

But Sasha is particularly excited to see his debut feature-length drama on the big screen at Event Cinemas in Castle Hill.