Dead Mans Burden

Synopsis

Martha (Clare Bowen) and her husband Heck (David Call) are two hardy settlers trying to survive in New Mexico after the end of the Civil War and the death of Martha's father. They're given hope for a better life when a mining company shows interest in purchasing their homestead, but things become tense when Martha's brother Wade (Barlow Jacobs), who defected to the Union Army returns home after hearing of their father's death- unaware that Martha herself was the one who brought about his demise.

Cast

Production

When writing the script for Dead Man's Burden, Moshe wrote with the intent to cast the film with lesser known actors, as he didn't want "to bring in a big-name actor who didn’t look like they belong in that period." Moshe did not use storyboards, as the film had a tight budget and couldn't afford a storyboard artist, instead watching other Western films for inspiration and working closely with cinematographer Robert Hauer. Filming took place in New Mexico over an 18-day period, where the cast experienced freak storms that forced the cast to walk to the set but did not delay filming.

Reception

Critical reception has been mixed to positive and the film holds a rating of 76 on Metacritic (based on 12 reviews) and 76% on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 17 reviews). Common elements praised in the film was Moshé's choice in cast, which Variety lauded as a highlight. However, in their mostly positive review IndieWire remarked that the lack of major stars and the choice to film a Western (which they saw as a "mostly defunct genre") could jeopardize commercial prospects. The New York Daily News's review was more mixed, as they felt that the "verbose period film has the complicated plot and tight pacing of a cable TV drama, which is then squashed into an indie-film paradigm."