Film produced in South Dakota premieres this week

Silence on the South Dakota prairie speaks loudly in a film premiering this week.

Once local filmmaker Dalton Coffey has set up the premise of “Fall Is a Good Time To Die,” he is unafraid to let the state’s south-central landscape tell the story, rather than stuffing the movie full of dialogue.

Coffey, who wrote, directed and co-produced “Fall,” his second feature-length film, used established actors and local residents to tell the story of a young ranch hand out for justice — or perhaps just revenge.

“Cody is a quiet kid. He’s a kid that really lacks the language to talk about what he’s gone through and what he’s going through,” said Joe Hiatt, who played the main character. “Because of that, he has to take drastic measures. He’s a quiet kid, a lonely kid, in need of and searching for a family but also has a very troubled past.”

“Fall Is a Good Time To Die” will premiere at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the State Theatre, followed by a question-and-answer session. Tickets also are available for a 7 p.m. show Thursday and a 2 p.m. matinee Saturday. Visit here to reserve a seat.

The appropriately named Buffalo 8, a media company from Santa Monica, California, picked up the distribution rights to the film. It can be reserved now on streaming services and will be released June 20.

The cast includes Hiatt, a University of Sioux Falls graduate who recently returned to Sioux Falls after living in New York City, Jennifer Pierce Mathus and Joey Lauren Adams, best known for “Chasing Amy,” “Dazed and Confused” and “Mallrats.”

Not listed in the cast credits but equally important as the flesh-and-blood actors is the scenery of the Burke and Gregory area. Rather than head to the Black Hills and Badlands, Coffey uses the hills and fields of that area to emphasize his characters’ isolation and, in some cases, near desperation.

Coffey places his characters on the tailgate of an old pickup truck watching a South Dakota sunset. He frames Cody’s face in brittle cornstalks. A long-unused windmill, choked by trees, points to a cloudy sky.

“As someone who works in a visual medium, I tried to make it as much about South Dakota as I could,” Coffey said. “South Dakotans talk about where they’re from, what the land looks like. In Arkansas, they talk about the culture. South Dakotans talk about whatever part of the state they’re from, mention the land and visually what it looks like and the change of seasons.”

A native of north-central Arkansas, Coffey moved to South Dakota 23 years ago. Despite two decades of familiarity, he relied on his wife and co-producer, Abbie Coffey, to make sure the film reflected the state’s reality. His first film, “Poor Mama’s Boy,” was set in his home state.

“I leaned on Abbie a lot — would they say this, would they do that,” Coffey said. “It was a challenge to write this way, but I wanted to do what was truthful and honest.”

Abbie Coffey grew up in Burke. The couple met through their fathers. Sometimes, Coffey’s dad would play with The Teels, the family’s bluegrass band. One day, one of Abbie’s sisters, who had heard Coffey perform, suggested he should play with the family too.

Abbie plays bass in the band. Her husband can play guitar, dobro, mandolin and bass. He played and recorded the soundtrack of “Fall Is a Good Time To Die,” and the occasional lonesomeness that bluegrass evokes is woven through the film.

Film work and music are his life, Coffey said, and they can’t be separated.

“I owe a lot to music,” he said.

When it comes to filmmaking, Coffey gravitates to themes he likes, themes that he “can feel in his teeth” as he describes it. “Poor Mama’s Boy” focused on a moral issue, Abbie Coffey said, and while “Fall” has some moral issues and dilemmas, it also has a stronger psychological element. In both films, the tension builds.

In “Fall Is a Good Time To Die,” Cody is not the only character coping with the bitterness of the past. Pierce Mathus plays the county sheriff, and the longest speech in the 90-minute film is a monologue when she unburdens herself to an uncomprehending former father-in-law.

What the films also have in common is Hiatt, playing two characters whose situations bear little commonality, Coffey said.

But both characters are quiet, Hiatt said. And with little dialogue, he had to rely on his face and body to share his inner turmoil.

“My screen time relies on reacting to things and not saying very much,” Hiatt said. “A lot of actors find that challenging, but I think that’s where I thrive.”

Hiatt was 17 years old when “Poor Mama’s Boy” was filmed. At age 24 for the second movie, he thinks he had many more tools to draw from. He has come even further from his childhood when, mother Melissa Hiatt reminds him, he would strip down to his underwear to reenact the characters in “Tarzan” and “The Lion King.”

“My mom always says she wasn’t surprised when I said I want to be an actor,” Hiatt said.

The isolation of south-central South Dakota helped Hiatt understand the isolation that Cody felt. The young man has been living alone for a few years, Hiatt said, and the lack of community propels him to consider violence.

Hiatt knows why Coffey set this story in South Dakota.

“The land, just being there, it’s definitely a character in itself,” he said. “Even the wind, what the wind does to you in a scene. The wind was so brutal I could barely keep my hat on, so I chose to work with that, not work around it. Because Cody was so alone, the landscape was my scene partner more than any other actor I worked with.”

You won’t find landmarks like Wall Drug in “Fall Is a Good Time To Die,” Abbie Coffey said. Instead, you’ll find the lesser-known beauty of the land crisscrossed by highways 18 and 44.

Coffey ended up as the movie’s writer, director, cinematographer, editor, music composer, sound mixer and colorist — “way too many jobs,” he said. “But you gotta do what you gotta do.” Despite being in film production for years, producing documentaries and narratives, he learned from his most recent film, he said.

As co-producer, Abbie Coffey’s role is “whatever Dalton doesn’t accomplish.” She focuses on the business side. “Fall” is a union picture, with Adams a member of the Screen Actors Guild, so she worked with that group.

“I made a lot of phone calls with lawyers, I have an aunt who did a ton of work in craft services, and at times I was an assistant director to Dalton,” she said. “The logistics all fell to me. It was my hometown, so I was the connection to all the places. Fortunately, we have complementary skill sets.”

Hiatt describes the Coffeys as incredible collaborators and the most talented people he knows. Despite their intense vision for their films, they are open to actors’ input. They are paving the way for filmmaking in South Dakota, he said.

“I am so blessed to be working with them and that they trust me with not just one but two movies under our belts together. We are talking about doing more. I think it’s a special time to be doing this work and making films in South Dakota.”

Coffey wanted to make something that felt honest to South Dakota, he said. He would love it, he said, if the residents of his adopted state would give “Fall Is a Good Time To Die” their seal of approval.

“Not being one myself, it would mean a lot to me,” said Coffey, who plans to put the films in boutique theaters around the state this fall, including the Hipp Theater in Gregory. “I’m not from here, and I hope I did it justice. I would love for South Dakota to support it, come out to the theater, buy it when it comes out. Seven dollars is pretty cheap to support an artist, and hopefully South Dakota will get behind it.”