With filmmaker Sasha Faust
Santa Fe Reporter Article
After graduating from New Mexico School for the Arts in 2018, filmmaker Sasha Faust was really more of an acting fan. A subsequent move to Los Angeles quickly taught her that she much preferred working behind the camera. While in California, a serendipitous reconnection with a former Santa Fe pal blossomed into a household full of fellow film aficionados, and Broken Slate Productions was born. Faust has since returned to Santa Fe, and the filmmaking collective’s first short, What We Find in the Sea, is slated to premier at the Center for Contemporary Arts (2:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 12. $10. 1050 Old Pecos Trail, (505) 982-1338) this weekend as part of a Santa Fe Film Festival block featuring seven shorts by women filmmakers—five of which are by locals. The tale of a young woman who finds herself working a fishing boat in Alaska, Faust and company’s film frames the coming-of-age story through commercial fishing—as something surmountable, though no less daunting than growing up itself. We caught up with her to ask a thing or two.
What We Find in the Sea is a subtly intense look at perseverance. What about commercial fishing spoke to that experience?
Coming of age and growing up is an intense period of time, and it takes a lot of perseverance and wading through, figuring things out, understanding cycles of life and figuring out where you fit in in the world. This story came about partially out of a friendship and [one of the creators] and I discussing wanting to make a coming-of-age story with the narrative of going to a new place to find yourself and grappling with things bigger than oneself. One of [their] best friends, who was also a producer on this film, went to Alaska and actually fished on the boat that we shot on when she was just out of high school, and pieces of the film are directly drawn from her experiences.
Read more at Santa Fe New Mexican Reporter By Alex De Vore