CHERRY VALLEY — Sun Opener is a 2025 short film…or is it a 2014 film? Or maybe it’s a 2012 short film. Does Sun Opener even exist in linear time? The film’s main character, Bobby Nomad, might argue it does not. Gordon Ramsey (not the ill-tempered chef) plays Nomad, an out-of-work drummer twelve years into sobriety who, after finding a pair of light therapy glasses that induce a psychedelic state (I think), receives a call from a club owner in Salt Lake City, requesting to hire him as a house drummer. While that call offered more questions than answers, when the universe summons, Bobby Nomad abides. However, Nomad’s trip won’t be as straightforward as packing up and heading west. Before he can embark on his journey, Nomad must stop to pick up his drums from a house upstate (Cherry Valley), where they are withheld unless he agrees to take a pesky teenager, Alice, played by Adeline Schneider, along with him. What follows is a trippy drive across America, concluding at Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. 

Constructing the film from the footage was a journey in itself, involving various edits and experiments over more than a decade since it was shot, before arriving at a final cut only recently. “We filmed it in 2012…taking only 6 days to drive to Utah from Cherry Valley, filming, and then fly[ing] back; but as with any gonzo-type film it takes far longer to edit all of that material,” says director/producer Alvin Case. The concept for the film was Ramsey’s, who exudes a bit of a Peter Fonda via Easy Rider charm throughout (albeit far less self-serious), and also served as a producer alongside Case. Complicating matters was that the story began to wander from the original concept as they migrated west, leading to footage that didn’t jive with the original plan. “But as they say, we trusted the process and did what we thought was needed for the story we weren’t sure was coming out,” says Case of the long post-production. “In the end, after a couple of years of editing and a few screenings of the film at festivals (which is where you can really gauge reactions), we finally got it to a point where it had some cohesion.” Case points out that Nomad’s voice-over narration in the film was added only last year, ahead of screenings in New York City and Berlin. “Sometimes it takes a while for the story to come out on its own.” 

Any journey into the American West offers cinematic opportunities, and Case captures that strange majestic landscape along the way, including Carhenge in Nebraska and, of course, the Spiral Jetty in Utah. Adding to the psychedelic momentum is the music of [The Sounds Of] Kaleidoscope, which fits so well I wondered if it had been composed for the film. Case explains that the existing music had actually helped unlock the film’s tone. “The title song, “Because I am Haunted,” I heard here on the local college radio, and it just fit, so it helped build the tone at the beginning,” recalls Case. “I contacted Damian Taylor, the frontman and head writer of the band, and he enthusiastically said [it was] okay to use any of the music.” Ultimately, the nature of the shoot, the unruliness of the project, gives Sun Opener a genuine feel of possibility and adventure; of reality coming unglued a bit, or “expanding,” as Nomad says in the film. There’s a fun, palpable abandon on screen as the duo wanders into the great unknown that is a bit infectious, which is what you want from a road trip movie.

Look for Sun Opener to become available on YouTube later this year.