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‘Elijah Peel’: Rock, Redemption and a Return to Faith

‘Elijah Peel’: Rock, Redemption and a Return to Faith

Last updated on: August 11, 2026 at 9:04 pm by DeWayne Hamby

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‘Elijah Peel’: Rock, Redemption and a Return to Faith 2026-08-11T21:04:55-04:00 DeWayne Hamby

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Kevin Sepe’s new film “Elijah Peel,” releasing in theaters this week from eKKL Entertainment, is less a conventional autobiographical film than a faith-steeped, music-driven meditation on brokenness and redemption, the writer-director-producer said in a recent conversation about the project.

‘Elijah Peel’ image stars Robert Malcolm Cumming and Evelyn Grace Kite. Image courtesy of eKKL Entertainment.

“It’s not a true true story,” he said. “It’s a story with a ton of truths and parallels to my life and metaphors in every sense.”

Sepe wrote the script roughly 15 years ago and carried the story with him through a long career in music and film production before deciding to make it with partner Terry Harris two years ago.

Sepe’s artistic pedigree is rooted in the commercial and event music world — jingles, soundtracks and live-show openings that demanded quick, evocative musical storytelling. He put himself through law school making music, produced albums and film soundtracks, and said he has written “probably 500 to 700” commercials and event pieces. Among them was a memorable national campaign, which he referenced by its tagline: “Proud to be your Bud.”

Sepe said he often composes music in tandem with the screenplay, sometimes writing songs as he writes scenes. “I wrote this song. I didn’t even have a melody, but ‘a life too short and a story too old,’ which is the big song that culminates the film that ends the film,” he said.

At the heart of the film is a spiritual reckoning. Sepe, who described long-standing internal struggles with “not being good enough” and fear, framed addiction and the excesses of the rock-and-roll life as a crucible that, for some, becomes a doorway to faith.

“I always believed that addiction is a gift, essentially, because I’m an addict, because it brought me harder, faster down. It’s like an accelerator,” he said. “If you’ve got problems, the addiction is a symptom of the problem. You get to the root bottom of the world, and you feel like it’s either death or life.”

The film’s trajectory, he explained, follows that theme—when the false comforts of fame and self-sufficiency collapse, a spiritual alternative becomes visible.

“The problem is the godlessness of my life. The belief that I can do everything on my own and I can fix my own problems,” Sepe said. “We need to surrender and let God run our lives, and if we do that, our lives can be a whole lot better.”

Sepe traced his own turn toward faith not to a religious upbringing — “my family wasn’t very spiritual” — but to a loneliness and internal void that persisted despite career success. His view, echoed in the film, is that many artists are both open to spiritual experience and vulnerable to the emptiness that fame sometimes masks.

“Many people in the arts, their minds are just a little — they’re just open,” he said. “That world is sort of many people in the arts are liberal-minded, and God is secondary.”

For Sepe, making “Elijah Peel” was both an artistic mission and a spiritual imperative. He said the story “called me” for years, returning until he and Harris set out to produce it. The result is a film that leans into metaphor and emotional truth rather than strict chronology, using music to articulate what dialogue cannot fully capture.

Sepe’s compositional method — writing songs into scenes, anticipating musical moments while drafting the screenplay — gives the film an autobiographical tone.

“I kind of write as I go. A lot of times I have in my brain scenes and songs for scenes,” he said.

The filmmaker hopes “Elijah Peel” will resonate with viewers who are wrestling with meaning, loss or addiction. He described the film’s potential impact in spiritual terms: a tether for those who feel unmoored.

“I’m praying that it just goes out and it helps people who are looking for what’s missing from their life,” he said.

“Elijah Peel,” written, produced and co-directed by Kevin Sepe and starring Robert Malcolm Cumming, Evelyn Grace Kite, Kevin Sorbo, April Billingsley and Princess Elmore, releases in theaters this week from eKKL Entertainment.

Evangelical

Robert Malcolm Cumming

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