32 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY MARCH 30-APRIL 5, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com FILM Tomorrow is an 82-minute drama written and directed by Kellen Gibbs, who took his first steps toward this artistic pursuit in Pacific Grove. The movie tells a story of a young girl, Harper, who struggles to get back home when she inexplicably starts waking up as a different person every day—a cast of 19 plays different variations of Harper. Gibbs describes the story as a love letter to his younger self. Born in Palo Alto, Gibbs went to elementary school in Soledad and moved to Pacific Grove when he was 13. There, he says, he spent his formative years with a camera that led him to a film school. “I like writing my own material,” Gibbs says, adding that when writing Tomorrow, he was using scenes from his life and things around him. The idea of waking up every day in a different place and body is not only a perfect expression of a teen’s inner crisis, but also creates a set of vignettes about human life. “I like dissecting people,” Gibbs says with a laugh. “It’s been my thing— existential questions.” Gibbs got his first digital camera when he was 8. He used Lego blocks to make his first movie, a stop-motion short, when he was 9 years old. Later he got his friends—real actors— involved in his movie projects. Gibbs’ last project, a 2015 short called The Moment I Was Alone, won Judges Choice at the Monarch International Film Festival in 2015 and Best Screenplay—Featurette at Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema in 2016. Just like Tomorrow, the film is a coming-of-age story, where reality and magic mix in a philosophical dialogue. “I like working with kids,” says Gibbs, now based in Burbank. “They are the most pure version of people.” In terms of his inspiration, Gibbs mentions the British-American filmmaker Christopher Nolan and psychological drama master Paul Thomas Anderson. And, of course, there’s Steven Spielberg—a huge influence on the coming-of-age aspect of his stories. In some ways Tomorrow has the feeling an older movie, perhaps something from the 1990s, thanks to the traditional soundtrack by CanadianArgentine composer Isaias Garcia. The movie is circulating through film festivals now—a UK premiere at the Scotland International Festival of Cinema in April, then onto San Jose for Cinequest in-person in August. Watch a trailer of Tomorrow by Kellen Gibbs at for-entertainment.com/tomorrow. COURTESY OF KELLEN GIBBS Watching Tomorrow A Monterey County-raised film writer and director is releasing his debut drama. By Agata Pop˛eda Kellen Gibbs (right) began writing Tomorrow in 2019, and he finished the script in 2020. His earliest projects in film started when he lived in Soledad and Pacific Grove. PRESENTED BY
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