“What keeps you alive?” Iconoclast and legendary NYC artist Dash Snow struggles to find an answer. What he isn’t able to articulate is all too apparent to those who knew and loved the mischievous rebel; his love for creating art, his relationships with his friends, and devotion to the city that raised him, NYC, all contributed to why Snow continued to wake up day after day, until one day, that wasn’t enough anymore. As documented in director Cheryl Dunn’s memoir, Moments Like This Never Last, audiences are given an intimate look into the personal life of another artist gone too soon.

Dash Snow was born Dashiell Alexander Whitney Snow and had always rejected the inherent privilege that came from being born into a wealthy family. He had nothing against his parents but wanted to find success the old-fashioned way: through hard work and dumb luck. Dash was a true student of the school of hard knocks, living his life doing dumb stuff with his equally grimy friends on the street of New York City, and creating magic in his path.

He had a polaroid camera with him wherever he went and those pictures became Dash’s legacy. The energy of 2000s NYC–pre-internet–is captured with such palpable energy and Cheryl Dunn does a stellar job bringing Dash’s spirit to life through his photos, home videos, and interviews with his friends and collaborators like Ryan McGinley and Larry Clark (Kids).

Unfortunately, there was a stronger love that overtook his passion for making art and staying sober for his girlfriend, Jade Berreau, and their young daughter, Secret, and that was drugs. There is an unspoken pressure in the art world that to succeed, you must “be crazy, and do a lot of drugs.” Heroin didn’t become prevalent in Dash’s life until after he had some buzz to his name and that’s what ended up killing him in an East Village hotel room at the age of 27.

Dash Snow was a charismatic, complicated, and outrageously talented figure who many compared to Basquiat. His signature style of politically charged graffiti and sexually explicit photos (snorting coke off an erect penis being one of his most infamous) cemented him as a legendary fixture in the post-punk revival arts scene.

Moments Like This Never Last pays tribute to the live fast lifestyle that Dash embraced. In a similar fashion, Cheryl Dunn’s portrayal is a gritty labor of love that makes us feel like we knew him personally, too. Made in collaboration with VICE studios, the film also features music from LCD Soundsystem, Nick Cave with Grinderman, Cat Power, with an original score by Brian DeGraw.

Distributed by Utopia Media. Opening this Friday at Laemmle Cinemas and on VOD.