Words: Dylan Murphy
Directed by Mikey Alfred (Illegal Civilisation), produced by Pharrell and featuring Miranda Cosgrove, Angus Cloud and Vince Vaughan, the coming-of-age skate film has a mouth-watering team behind it. However, without a distributor, we likely won’t have it on our screens for a while.
It’s the early 2010’s, Odd Future is blaring in the background, you’ve just bought a Supreme 5 panel and you keep tripping over the skateboard you been mercilessly trying to master this summer. Life is good.
For hoards of teens, the west coast rap crew and its surrounding goofy skate culture was an alternative entry point into the increasingly trap orientated hip hop landscape. With a looser aesthetic and a DIY approach to capturing the day-to-day horseplay of Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, The Creator the collective made its mark on internet culture.
Illegal Civilisation is a skate crew founded by Mikey Alfred and although he started off skating he increasingly found himself behind the camera as time moved on. This led him to film much of Odd Future’s antics and without him, things may have looked different. From there he went on to work with a host of other acts including Mac Miller and creating his own videos for Illegal Civ.
Now, he’s directed his debut feature length called North Hollywood. It follows a kid trying to become a pro skater and the antics that follow his quest.
Mikey has cast friend Ryder Mclaughlin who starred in Jonah Hill’s Directorial Debut Mid 90s alongside the likes of Miranda Cosgrove, Vince Vaughan, Nico Hiraga and multi-hypenate Na-Kel Smith.
The only issue is that it still doesn’t have a distributor and without that, it won’t reach our screens for a while.
In the mean time watch the trailer below: