“It’s about America,” explains German-born director Björn Rühmann of the trilogy of collaborative short films he created with Los Angeles-based neo-folk band The Herbert Bail Orchestra. “We wanted to dig deep into the country, and the themes of isolation and disconnection stood out.” 

The first episode, The Nature of Things, features English actor Ritchie Coster, a veteran of films including American Gangster and The Dark Knight, on a lonely last journey into the desert with his sole canine companion. Rühmann and his wife and collaborator Kerstin Rühmann—who co-created and co-wrote the trilogy—spent a month living high up in the hills of Echo Park. It began a year long process of shooting and writing alongside Anthony Frattolillo, the singer-songwriter at the heart of The Herbert Bail Orchestra, who will be touring in the spring. 

“For me the desert evokes so many cinematic memories and the location felt like the perfect place for this American myth,” muses Executive Producer Diane McArter, President of the LA production company Furlined. “The setting helps evoke the malady of our American psyche, in which broken characters rehearse the same drama of alienation and existential despair in a barren landscape.”

Rebecca Guinness is Editor-at-Large at NOWNESS.