'The Dust Monologues' Profile

New Mexico Film News • February 24, 2019

The Dust Monologues is an evocative short film showcasing fifteen powerful New Mexico actors: Andy Brooks, Vic Browder, Marc Comstock, Esodie Geiger, Jack Forcinito, Andy Kastelic, ten-year-old Ava Wagenman, Debrianna Mansini, Lora Martinez-Cunningham, Tatanka Means, Sarah Minnich, Dodie Montgomery, Jack O’Donnell, Barbie Roberston, and Wes Studi. Each is a force to be reckoned with, and a storm is brewing. The film is a masterful succession of fifteen monologues that not only capture your attention they hold it with a death grip.

The Dust Monologues is a clean and exquisite display of New Mexico talent. Each featured actor is balance between who Kastelic has had the pleasure of working with in the past, and those he’s dreamed of working with. Shot at Santa Fe’s Dirt Floor Revival Studio over the course of two days with actors arriving solely to perform their scenes, the studio’s cyc wall, a wall with curved edges at its base creating an infinity effect, lent an expansive and unspoiled backdrop for fifteen fiery performances. The black and white film was dusted with the very grays that exist when one reads in-between the lines, and each performance exudes an array of color that lunge from a blank canvas. The carefully chosen camera angles impart an intense layer of integrity while the intricate cuts and meticulous sound arrangements lay a sheet of platinum dust to an already exceedingly accomplished undertaking.

The inspiration for The Dust Monologues came from stories set in dusty New Mexico where every day folk are doing more than walking on the ash-like ground; they are finding their legs, affirming their truth, or taking a punch. Furthermore, visionary writer and director Andy Kastelic wanted to showcase the caliber of above-the-line talent. His message to local talent is this: “New Mexico actors. Here is a sample of some of the most committed, consummate, researched, and accomplished actors, and this The Dust Monologues is a clear demonstration. They have a mastery of the most basic. That’s why we chose this format. There’s nothing to lean back on… There’s no scenery. There isn’t a partner in the scene. It’s just an excellence of the basics. From there the sky is the limit.”

New Mexico talent will not go unnoticed. You’ll cling to their every word and forget you are their audience. Their performances are nothing less than outstanding, each coloring the black and white film with a vibrancy that juts you so firmly into the ground that you’ll expel dust from your lungs for weeks to come. “Every single one of these characters, they’re right at the climax of something in their lives,” says Kastelic. “If they don’t get what they’re going for right now they will have failed. They will have literally been buried by the dust of life. Dust stands in for everything that will inevitably come at people into their lives… if they give into addiction, hate, apathy. If they give into violence, they will have been buried.”

Kastelic’s writing is compelling, and equally affecting—it is the very material that the film’s fierce actors cut their teeth on. And under his direction, a beautiful dust storm of fifteen monologues can be illustrated as a solitary desert flower. Brace yourself. The Dust Monologues will take you by storm.

By Valerie Baeza, © New Mexico Film News