Dead Man's Burden

Opening with a startling act of violence, this tense, classically crafted indie Western takes place in the aftermath of the Civil War on a hardscrabble homestead in New Mexico where the McCurry clan has been struggling to survive. Martha McCurry sees salvation in selling the family farm, against the wishes of her father. With the patriarch's death, she seizes her opportunity, but her plans are upset by the unexpected return of her brother Wade, a defector to the Union Army long thought dead. Jared Moshé's impressive first feature depicts a family in the lethal grip of its own civil war.