Cleveland is getting whole lotta love on the screen this year.<\/a><\/p>\n First came James Gunn\u2019s \u201cSuperman\u201d and now \u201cLost & Found in Cleveland,\u201d<\/a> which opens Nov. 7 on 500 screens nationwide.<\/p>\n Both filmed here, but the latter will likely be far more personal for natives in Northeast Ohio as directors Keith Gerchak, a Lakewood native, and Marisa Guterman, a Los Angeles native, who loved it here so much during filming that she ditched Cali for Cleveland, have cracked the code to enjoying what the North Coast offers.<\/p>\n Telling four stories that converge at a “Antiques Roadshow” like show, it gets to the heart of what it means to be of Cleveland if not from it.<\/p>\n There\u2019s the liberal college professor (Santino Fontana) worried about what his Black friend will think about his inherited collection of Aunt Jemima figures, the pretentious Hunting Valley socialite (Liza Weil) who is focused on her piece from Tunisia. The boy (Benjamin Steinhauser) who has an affinity for Pres. McKinley, the senior couple (June Squibb<\/a>, Stacy Keach) whose male half exhibits signs of early-stage Alzheimer\u2019s and the mailman (Dennis Haysbert<\/a>) with dreams of being a restauranteur.<\/p>\n Dennis Haysbert and Martin Sheen in a scene from “Lost & Found in Cleveland.”<\/p>\n All have dreams of their items scoring a large payday in some form or fashion. Each story presents a uniquely Cleveland perspective.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a 12-year odyssey for Gerchak and Guterman to get their film and those perspectives to the screen.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always said that this film was like a re-imagining of the Wizard of Oz. So, there was this Yellow Brick Road aspect to it and this kind of hero’s journey, which is really what that film is about,\u201d Gerchak said during a recent Zoom conversation, \u201cand we had set out to tell the journey of everyday heroes, which doesn’t really get reflected in movies in Hollywood anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n That lack of representation is a significant challenge for smaller films in Hollywood today, which is why \u201cLost & Found\u201d has taken the independent route. There are those in the Cleveland area who are investors, including a book club, Guterman revealed.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, inherently filmmaking is a miracle. Each film that comes together is its own sequence of impossible events,\u201d she said. \u00a0\u201cAnd I think just where we are in the macro environment of films, a movie like ours would never get made in a conventional system of what Hollywood puts out. It’s an ensemble comedy with heart. It’s nostalgic, it’s hopeful, and it’s not what studios do.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s also a film that deals with the eccentricities of Cleveland, good and bad, humorous and otherwise. Cleveland, until recent years, has been a polarized metropolitan area. Despite being within the same city limits, east siders didn\u2019t migrate west and vice versa.<\/a> The sometimes-obsessive sports culture gets the spotlight along with the toxic masculinity that can come with it gets needled.<\/p>\n And, of course, there\u2019s the racism that has been an issue in the city for seemingly eons that is exposed both covertly and overtly within one scene filmed at the West Side Market with Cleveland favorite Haysbert (\u201cMajor League,\u201d \u201cMajor League II\u201d).<\/p>\n June Squibb and Stacy Keach in a scene from “Lost & Found in Cleveland.”<\/p>\n But they also bring that Cleveland flavor with actors such as Haysbert, a last-minute addition to the cast, who has been adopted by the city because of those \u201cMajor League\u201d films<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I think that this character is going to make people believe and have hope again,\u201d Guterman said, \u201cand so I think that is a quality that is so unique to Dennis’s talent and gift. There’s something soulful and almost godly about him that the people of Cleveland just have such a connection to him.\u201d<\/p>\n The cast, in fact, is peppered with actors who have ties to the city and the state.<\/p>\n Martin Sheen portrays Dr. Austin Raybourne one of the antiquities experts on the fictional television show.\u00a0 Sheen, a Dayton native, has never been shy about his Ohio ties. The unknown surprise: Squibb\u2019s ties to the area<\/a>. The star of films such as \u201cNebraska,\u201d her breakout role, began her career at the Cleveland Play House in 1951 and was inducted into the Play House Hall of Fame in 2014.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s an authenticity that they bring, that there’s a full immersion into the world of what Ohio is like that I think people were reacting to,\u201d Gerchak said of the cast. \u201cIt also attracted the kind of actors who didn’t frankly do it for the money. It was an independent film, but they did it to work with each other and they did it to tell this kind of story that Marisa’s talking about. When they read the script, Dennis wept because it just touched him in a way. Martin Sheen said he hadn’t had a role where he could do the monologues that he did at \u2018The West Wing\u2019 in like 25 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
The challenge in making \u2018Lost & Found in Cleveland\u2019<\/h2>\n
Finding that North Coast vibe in \u2018Lost & Found in Cleveland\u2019<\/h2>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
A cast with local and Ohio ties in \u2018Lost & Found in Cleveland\u2019<\/h2>\n
Finding its audience at the Cleveland International Film Festival<\/h2>\n