CRESTONE a film by MARNIE ELLEN HERTZLER

CRESTONE a film by MARNIE ELLEN HERTZLER. 2020, USA, 73 min. Five SoundCloud rappers construct an alternate reality in the remote Colorado desert. Baltimore filmmaker Marnie Ellen Hertzler’s feature debut Crestone is a playful portrait of DeadGod, a SoundCloud rap collective living in the remote Colorado desert, growing weed and beat-making. Melting music videos, scripted fiction and observational documentary footage together to a hypnotizing original score by Animal Collective, the film collapses internet culture into a surreal account of friendship in far-flung America. Hertzler regroups with five of her old high school classmates in Crestone, CO, where they have adopted a fringe lifestyle far away from the distractions of everyday life. She finds the group of idealistic rappers splayed out on couches, rehearsing verses while getting neck tattoos, and foraging for food between recording sessions. Fascinated that her friends were so devoted to their art and music that “they’d quarantined themselves in a small desert town,” Hertzler’s documentary pieces together a peculiar, but no less affectionate tribute to a ragtag assemblage of artists with big dreams.