Matthew Engelbert Talks ‘What Tomorrow Brings,’ Working With His Family, And Indie Filmmaking

Matthew Engelbert wrote, directed, and produced the indie family drama What Tomorrow Brings. The movie was a family affair, as his daughters Joely Engelbert and Phoebe Engelbert star as the leads. His older children (Eli, Ariel, and Zoey) along with his wife Caroline also handled various responsibilities on the feature. Engelbert talked to Deepest Dream about shooting his movie on an iPhone 15 Pro Max and the overall challenges of making What Tomorrow Brings. Review of What Tomorrow Brings and full interview with Engelbert is below!

What Tomorrow Brings centers on Clara (Joely Engelbert), a teenager who tries to take care of her younger sister Ruby (Phoebe Engelbert) amidst extremely tough circumstances. Their father has passed and their mother, overwhelmed by her parental duties, tells Clara that she will be leaving them to seek treatment.

Shooting on an iPhone Pro 15 Max, even though he used several, was an intriguing choice for Matthew Engelbert. It was a creative decision that ultimately worked for the filmmaker. “I knew I could shoot with (an iPhone) as opposed to bringing in two larger, much more professional cameras,” said Engelbert. “And then I would be bringing in camera operators. With the nature of this film, where I needed to have such latitude with the filming schedule, it just worked. For this type of movie, I think the camera captured (the tale) really well. My objective with this film was to frame the shots I wanted. I believed it was a good story.”

To provide a bit more realism to the dialogue, Engelbert enlisted Joely and Phoebe as his co-writers. The movie was, to coin an oft-ushed phrase, a family affair.

“I wouldn’t have made the movie,” said Engelbert. “If I wasn’t making it with them.”

Another aspect that worked was the healthy use of voiceover which gives us a bird’s eye view of Clara’s inner thoughts and turmoil. “For me, the idea of journaling and the voiceover, that’s how I decided I was going to transition between scenes,” said Engelbert. “I thought, ‘How do people cope with trauma?’ I’d read somewhere that (some) journal. So a lot of this story is told through (Clara’s) lens.”

My review of What Tomorrow Brings:

I appreciated Matthew Engelbert’s intimate approach with What Tomorrow Brings, and the feature contains standout work from Joely Engelbert (she won Best Actress at the Santa Fe Film Festival) and Phoebe Engelbert. I’ll be posting their interviews next week, and thanks to the Engelberts for taking the time for the chat.

What Tomorrow Brings is available on TVOD/AVOD starting September 4th.

Full interview with Matthew Engelbert:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by What Tomorrow Brings (@whattomorrowbringsmovie)