BEVERLY — Every morning before going off to the Cove Elementary School as a third-grader, Matt Gill remembers waking up extra early so he could sketch out comic strips for the “Star Wars” movies so he could draw them later on at night before going to bed.
Twenty years later, after two degrees in filmmaking from Muhlenberg College and Brooklyn College, that same passion for big-screen movies still runs through the veins of the 30-year-old.
The 2014 Beverly High graduate, who lives in Brooklyn, returned to his hometown this week to film scenes as the director of his first feature film, “little bunker hill”.
Production of the movie began 2½ years ago in New Hampshire, and is now finishing up in Beverly.
Set in 19th-Century New England, “little bunker hill” follows the first wave of settlers from a secluded commune as they attempt to return to regular society.
“The movie is set in the 1840s, so it’s a period piece,” Gill said. “It’s basically about a young woman who brings a bunch of people to the woods to start a commune to try to change the world. It turns out it’s not so easy, because people like all the conveniences of everyday life.”
Two of the main characters, Kylee Jacoby, of Pennsylvania, and Posie Lewis, of Maryland, originally met Gill and other members of the production crew while at Mulhenburg. The circle of friends have worked with one another in previous projects, mostly short films. But this one is different.
“It’s been a long journey and an amazing one,” said Jacoby. “We got to see it come to life in the early stages when Matt was first writing it and now to see it have a second life and finish the film off has been amazing. It’s really special. We are really leaning on community and the support of people who also care about supporting art and independent filmmaking. It’s thrilling.”
Jacoby plays “Ellison,” the main character, and Lewis plays “Nettie,” the daughter of the founder of the commune.
“Nettie grew up around all of these ideas and is deeply cynical, so she’s just a skeptic at heart and she doesn’t believe that the community has what it takes to survive and thrive, but she adores Ellison,” said Lewis. “There’s this whole kind of overarching question of ‘is it possible to make a better version of society that can thrive?’”
The cast consists of 15 actors and up to 45 extras. Once filming is done, six people will be needed for post-production including editing and adding music.
For Gill, filming in Beverly was a creative and personal decision.
The Hale and Balch houses, where filming took place earlier this week, preserve the architecture and atmosphere of the 1800s — from uneven floorboards and low ceilings to original wash basins and furnishings — providing an authentic backdrop that would be very difficult to recreate on a soundstage.
Working closely with the Beverly Historical Society, the production is transforming the historic homes into a living period setting while carefully respecting the surrounding neighborhood.
Visitors who show up Friday and Saturday can expect to see dozens of actors in Romantic-era costumes, historic interiors brought to life, windows blacked out to preserve the illusion of the 19th century.
“It’s exciting to do a project — to make something that you wish you could see — a story that hasn’t been told before. It keeps you up at night and obsesses you for so long that you think it would interest other people,” said Gill. ‘We’re in our third year of putting it all together and I don’t regret a single second of it.”
After working as a writer or producer for three short films: “Holey”, “Poetry Night” and “Something Beautiful in the Daylight”, Gill was in a New Jersey Library in the summer of 2023 when he read about North American Saillants and came up with the idea for the film.
“I was shocked that I had never heard about it before that,” he said. “I dug deeper, and there were a lot of communes in Massachusetts, people coming to live together and rejecting expansion of the railroad and industrialization.”
He immediately began writing the script.
“After that, we were in New Hampshire driving to barns and knocking on doors, asking them if we could film somewhere,” said Gill. “We eventually shot (scenes) in a tavern from the 1800s, a farmhouse, and a farm. We shot there for about two weeks, and after that we realized we needed more material, so I figured it would be best to bring it back home (to Beverly).”
Technically, this isn’t the first time Gill made a movie in his hometown.
“When I was a senior at Beverly High, I produced the movie for the mock car crash of the drunk driver coming back from prom,” he recalled.
Thirteen movies have filmed scenes in Beverly since 1970, including Hollywood hits “The Thomas Crown Affair” and “The Crucible,” and more recently “Manchester-By-The-Sea” and “The Tender Bar.”
“Bringing it home to Beverly means so much to me,” he said. “Certainly, I wouldn’t have dreamed of making a film like this if I hadn’t grown up in Beverly, because the first thing I was thinking about writing about was, ‘What happened in the place that I grew up in before I was here?’ Exploring that past — there’s so much history in this area.”
Gill said he plans to complete production in the fall, followed by editing. From there, it’ll be film festivals and working with agents to get the film on screens — ideally local ones.
“Hopefully it’ll be at the Cabot theater, the Larcom theater, and (Cinema Salem), and hopefully in Cambridge too,” he said. “There’s been so much energy put into gathering all the information and details for this story and organizing the machine for the production. The obsession, not just from me, but for many people on the team, has been all-encompassing.
“I’m excited to use that energy and keep moving it forward into another wave and into another film (after this one),” said Gill, “because every film that I direct will somehow always be related to the Star Wars comic strips that I did as a kid.”