Director Steven Caple Jr. was mentoring some elementary school students at an inner-city park in Los Angeles when he spotted two stray kids hopping a fence with their skateboards. He went to go kick them out of the park and ended up talking with them instead. They spilled that they were selling marijuana to fund their entry into skateboarding competitions and new equipment. It was their ticket out.
That seed of an idea eventually became "The Land ," Caple's feature debut about a group of kids, Cisco (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), Junior (Moises Arias), Boobie (Ezri Walker) and Patty Cake (Rafi Gavron), who do just that, but with a sack of Ecstasy they find. The film is currently playing in New York and Los Angeles.
Caple stayed in touch with those kids from the park during his time at USC's film school. Later, he found out that one ended up getting a sponsorship. The other disappeared.
"I started writing it about the kid who made it out, More
