A Chicago filmmaker talks about making a Western in New Mexico in the wake of the ‘Rust’ tragedy

CHICAGO — Chicago writer-director Ned Crowley’s indie Western “Killing Faith” is set in the Arizona desert in 1849. It follows a doctor (Guy Pearce) who numbs his misery with ether but sobers up long enough to escort a driven and resourceful formerly enslaved woman (DeWanda Wise) across the barren landscape. She’s in search of a deceptively chipper preacher (Bill Pullman) who she believes can cast out whatever force — or sickness — plagues the little girl she is raising. The child kills everything she touches with her hands, which is why she wears mittens despite the absence of cold weather.

In theaters nationwide, the film is quiet and atmospheric, at times droll and at times extremely brutal. Crowley will be at a screening on Wednesday at the Classic Cinemas Lake Theatre in Oak Park.

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