Set in South Dakota near the picturesque Badlands and the nondescript town of Wall with its tacky tourist trap Wall Drug, “East of Wall” is like one of the difficult horses at the center of its story: hard to get a handle on. At least initially.

An evocative opening montage lays out an expansive western landscape across which a teenage girl rides. Interspersing equestrian scenes with less glamorous shots of trashed trailers, the rhythm of cinematic images gives way to seemingly random cellphone videos, made for TikTok, that we gradually learn are the marketing tools of its central character. She’s a kind of horse whisperer — some call her a witch — named Tabatha Zimiga, which is also the name of the actress who plays her (a nonprofessional, like many in this docufictional feature debut of

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