After world premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC earlier this year, Stuart Gatt’s captivating thriller finally screens in the UK at the upcoming Raindance Film Fest. And I caught up with the filmmaker to ask him about his influences, why he’s so good at writing women’s characters and more.
It is impossible to watch Catching Dust, the feature debut by UK-born filmmaker Stuart Gatt, without seeing hints of David Lynch’s work and Guillermo Arriaga’s 2008 The Burning Plain.
Another Gaze
When the film will finally screen in the filmmaker’s “backyard” in London, on the 28th of October as part of the Raindance Film Festival’s lineup, UK audiences will witness a homegrown gaze focused on an alien landscape — that of the remote, barren Texas desert. And it turns out that outsiders looking in can become the best way to witness something you always thought you knew, in a different light, through another lens.
In fact, at the Tribeca Film Festival where Gatt’s debut feature film world premiered, Catching Dust was screened as part of their ‘Viewpoints’ program, which, as the festival states “discovers the most boundary-pushing, rule-breaking new voices in independent film.”
Living in a trailer with her up-to-no-good husband Clyde in a remote part of the Texas plains, Geena finally works up the courage to leave. But just as she is about to do so, a couple from NYC suddenly drop in, complete with cool people’s prefabricated home in tow — and everyone’s best laid plans unravel. This is the basic storyline at the core of Catching Dust, although the film is much more about exploring its complex characters, and discovering slowly but surely, as an audience, that sometimes first impressions aren’t what they seem. The casting of Geena, played by Erin Moriarty and Clyde, played by Jai Courtney, along with Dina Shihabi and Ryan Corr as New Yorkers Amaya and Andy, is utterly brilliant and makes Catching Dust is an ensemble piece not to be missed.
I was fortunate to catch up with filmmaker and writer Stuart Gatt on Zoom, and the resulting interview explained even more the brilliance I found in his film. Read on. And if you wish to watch the film in London, you can find tickets on the Raindance website. The October 28th screening will feature an in person Q&A with Gatt at the Curzon Soho.
What We Watch Changes Us
I loved the film because it has this David Lynch kind of feel. So was he one of your influences, or have you been watching a lot of his films?
Stuart Gatt: That's a crazy compliment because I love David Lynch. And I look at the work he does and I'm like I can't even begin to try and let him be an influence because it's so unique, what he does, I don't think you can try to emulate or even attempt to. And it's not my style to really try to emulate anyone. I think my focus is to try and make sure that my work is unique and will have a unique artistic voice and allowing that to be uniquely mine.
I think it would be such an incredibly intimidating prospect to try and emulate or allow Lynch to even influence you. Okay, here's one thing I suppose that maybe even on a subconscious level he probably would influence is that he's somebody definitely who is not afraid to tear up the idea of a traditional narrative. And that's exciting as a filmmaker and as a writer. I think a big part of being an artist is you're kind of aware of the norms of your art. And you're always trying to find a way to operate optimally within them and also find ways to break out of them without losing, you know, an audience which has certain expectations of what your art is. And I feel like David Lynch is someone who really is unafraid of breaking out of the norm. So it would be such a scary prospect to even… I know David Lynch's films. He's someone I really, really respect but he definitely wasn't someone I was thinking about when looking at this film.
Then you're living proof that what we watch changes us because what you've watched and what you've admired has definitely influenced your style! So now onto this idea that who we think a character is does not really turn out to be who they are, which is a very interesting angle in your film. How did you come up with it?
Gatt: It's funny because that question has been asked of me a lot recently, and it was such a strange one for me. Because I'm like, it came from my head! Where else could it come from? But I've realized the reason why people ask that is because I do have certain stories that I’ve gravitated towards. And a couple of my short films have dealt with more political issues and those issues I wanted to step into.
Stuart Gatt on the set of ‘Catching Dust’
Ironically, actually, it was David Lynch who said this and I really recognize that he said, you get ideas that will flesh in your mind and sometimes some of those ideas are more attractive than others and you latch on to them. And it’s definitely something with this film. I kept having this image of a trailer in the middle of the desert. And for some reason that image was really exciting to me, and it really fascinated me and you start to challenge yourself with people who could live there, and why are they there? And what would force them to be there and what could happen right now that will turn this character's life upside down. And you start going on this journey in your mind, basically, which was just really the genesis, this simple image. That happens to me a lot. And it was definitely the case with this story. That one image of a trailer in the middle of the desert was the seed that the rest of the story grew out of.
What You See Is Not What You Get
Without giving any spoilers away, you do challenge our perceptions and who your characters turn out to be in the end is not who we think they are at the beginning.
Gatt: I think it is a really interesting technique from a writing perspective, or storytelling perspective, where you do challenge an audience's perception because an audience will see someone or understand someone in the first act of the film. And there's already a projection of who that person is and how that person will play out over the course of the story. And I always think it's quite interesting to avert expectations.
How did you cast for these very specific roles? Your casting is quite brilliant.
Gatt: I knew that we had to be really rigorous with the casting because this film lives and dies on the performance of the actors — I really felt that from the beginning, and I feel that now. The cast that we had really went over and above what I could have expected and I couldn't be happier with their performances. The dynamic between the four was the other concern. When you feel like you have found two great people and then you find another two great people but you're not convinced that their dynamics will work and this just worked perfectly for us.
The film was made in the US studio system, so what is interesting is once you get into that US system, you started getting pitched a lot by the big three agencies for talent and you're getting calls all the time from agents who want to pitch you their clients. I was in a lot of auditions, and I was doing a lot of meetings as well. But within a few minutes of speaking with the people that we cast — Erin, Jai, Ryan and Dina — I knew they were right for their roles. The way they were speaking about the role, even who they were, you could see the character within them. They understood their character on a level I felt pretty confident with. And they all brought something really neat. Their approaches were totally different, but the one thing that all of them had was a real passion.
Your bios always say you are British-Asian. What part of that large continent are you from?
Gatt: My mom is from India. And my dad is Italian, from the South.
The Fault In The British Filmmaking System
That’s so cool, my mom is southern Italian too! So this brings me to the setting of your film. Did you always know that you wanted to set your first feature in an American landscape or was this the result of that vision of seeing that trailer in the desert?
Gatt: There are two parts to this. One is yes, that image was one that really compelled me and I was moved towards. But I have to be honest, as one who is born and raised as a lot of Londoners are from immigrant parents, I never saw myself making films in the British industry. For whatever reason, and maybe because I grew up watching sort of classic American cinema. I have to be honest, I don't think we do a good job of creating movement here in the UK. When I think about some of the best British filmmakers, they are all working in the States. Korea has a movement, India has a movement, Colombia has a movement at the moment. French filmmakers, they work in France, they have a system and a culture and a style of filmmaking that people want to work within.
I don’t know what our movement is here. Apart from Ken Loach, I don’t know who else is making British films really, that are exciting — and that’s not to say there isn’t great talent here, there is! But after many of them make two or three films here, they all go off to the States. So I think I had a lot of British filmmakers I revered but within the British system, I didn’t see an option. And that’s the reason why my subconscious was firing these American landscapes at me.
Moving Away
It’s a survivalist viewpoint coming from you, as I recently spoke to Michael Winterbottom in Doha and he addressed the need to support filmmakers beyond their first couple of films, which is all the help that’s available in the UK at the moment — for a first or second film at most.
Gatt: You know, I'm fascinated by the way that the conscious and subconscious inform us. I don't think it's a coincidence.
Parental Guidance
Agreed. I want to go back to your cinematic upbringing. So what were you watching as a young adult and in those years which formed the kind of filmmaker you are today?
Gatt: That's a very, very, very good question because I never went to film school. And I realized I was struck. I surprise myself sometimes when I'm on a film set, because I really feel confident in what a shot should look like. But the question is, how did I really feel like I understand the cinema, the language of it really, really well? I think the biggest education I've got is that both my parents were cinephiles. And my dad in particularly, probably some bad parenting at work, he would show me a lot of Scorsese and a lot of Kubrick and a lot of really classic American 70’s and 80’s cinema that I should never have been watching. That was the Golden Age of American cinema that I was watching! I'm not saying it's the pinnacle of cinema, but definitely of the American cinema. I was watching artists creating films at a much higher budget than what they get now. Or at least you know, since Heaven's Gate obviously changed the way auteurs were allowed to make films within the studio system. I was watching a lot of that stuff like The Godfather and Taxi Driver and 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining and all films that as a young boy, I should never have been watching.
Some would argue you should have…
Gatt: I mean, my mom would have killed my dad if she knew I was watching that stuff.
What were you watching with your mom?
Gatt: A lot. She was a single mom raising two very boisterous young men, and her way of pacifying us was to give us videotapes — film after film and I think that again was part of that culture.
So you've learned films from all these maestros of cinema, from all these male filmmakers and yet your female characters are the ones that I find the most deeply developed. Where does that come from?
Gatt: I think it must be growing up from a baby with a single mom. I think it must be and just being so connected to her struggles. She was a Brown woman, born in India, here in a very racist UK, trying to raise me and my brother on her own — and we were like terrors when we were younger. She came from a toxic breakup, and she was trying to do everything that she could. I mean, she worked every day that she could give me the opportunities that I have now. And I think being the man of the house at like three years old, I became so emotionally connected to her struggle that it must have rubbed off — that's the only explanation I can have. I didn't think anything strange about it until it was pointed out to me. I never understood it. But every time I write a story, it always starts with a female character.
Coming Home
It's not weird at all. I find it really quite beautiful in your narrative. The last question, after world premiering last spring at Tribeca, now you’ll be showing it to UK audiences. Any fear, any apprehension, any excitement?
Gatt: I feel just positive. And I think I've done everything I can do. I gave everything, I mean I'm a hard worker and I put everything into this film, into the script, everything into prep, everything into the shoot everything into post — there's nothing more I could have given.
I literally gave it everything — me and the team as it's not just about me. We have an incredible team. We really challenged ourselves to make something special, and challenged ourselves artistically to really explore all opportunities and ideas. We couldn't have given any more. So at this point, there's nothing I can control. And you just hope people can connect to it in some way.
So I'm excited to be showing the film here in the UK but yeah, I'm in a really quiet, tranquil place at the moment.
All images courtesy of the filmmaker, used with permission.