Growing up in the neighborhood bordering West 54th Street and Detroit Avenue, Steven Caple Jr. experienced a Cleveland far different from the one enjoyed by trendy downtowners.
“When I went to John Marshall [High School], I had to take two buses to school,” says the 28-year-old Caple. “At one bus stop, every morning there were prostitutes just chillin’, offering their services. They looked like addicts. … It was pretty scary.”
That stark cityscape of Caple’s youth comes to life in The Land, his directorial debut about the shadowy lives of four teenage skateboarders who become neophyte drug dealers, hoping to earn money for skating competitions. The coming-of-age tale shows the harsh realities of Cleveland’s streets and the lengths the teens go through to find an out. “It’s very much a story of escaping that environment,” says Caple from his Los Angeles home. “We’re telling a gritty story in a poetic way.”
Produced by Cleveland’s Low Spark Films, The Land is set for a July 29 release in New York City and LA and an Aug. 5 theatrical release in Cleveland. (It will also be available on iTunes.) The film premiered to rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Singer-songwriter Erykah Badu and local rapper Machine Gun Kelly appear in the film and contribute new music to a star-studded soundtrack that also includes new tracks from Nas, Kanye West and French Montana. “I wrote a role specifically for Erykah,” says Caple. “She loved the script.”
Returning to his hometown to film last summer was surreal for Caple, who halted production for two days following a shooting on an adjacent block. “We shot in some gnarly neighborhoods, so there were a lot of restless days and nights,” he says. “We did a lot of night shoots. People came out of their houses at 3 a.m. to take photos.”
Caple, who mentors young men in LA, hopes to show audiences another side of inner-city youth. “Street skating is about making something out of nothing,” he says. “We’re labeling [inner-city kids] as criminals and thugs, but they’re just kids. I want this movie to really stick with people."
