NEXT LIFETIME
Feature Film Narrative
Project Type: Feature Film Narrative
Project Status: Pre-Production
Writer/Director/Producer: Jay Anthony
Director/Cinematographer: Nefty Quijada
Director of Photography: Joe Katches
Composer: John Forbes
Script Supervisor: Chase Fernandez
Production Audio/Lighting/Gaffer: Jehvan Crompton
Lead Actors: Kyle Mitchell, Noella Soleil, Laroya "LaLa" Compton
Supporting Actors: Titus Stevens, Bobby "Bob" Ortiz Jr.
LOGLINE
An ambitious personal trainer in a strained relationship falls for his girlfriend’s married mother, igniting a forbidden romance that threatens his future and tears her family apart.
SYNOPSIS
Semaj is an ambitious personal trainer trying to build a successful career while his relationship with Layla grows increasingly strained. When he begins training her mother, Diane, their sessions become an unexpected source of understanding and emotional connection. What starts as friendship deepens into a love neither of them planned.
Married to William, a retired professional basketball player, Diane must confront her own unhappiness and the consequences of pursuing a relationship with her daughter’s boyfriend. As Semaj and Diane grow closer, their connection threatens the bonds holding the family together, forcing them to face questions of loyalty, desire, and the future they could have together.
A year later, success and a reunion offer Semaj and Diane another chance. But after a pregnancy test exposes their secret, William’s violent confrontation ends in tragedy: Diane shields Semaj from gunfire, and William takes his own life. Left to carry the grief of a love cut short, Semaj holds on to the hope that they might find each other again in the next lifetime.
MORE ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Next Lifetime explores forbidden love, unresolved parental wounds, emotional neglect, ambition, and the consequences of meeting the right person at the wrong time. At its center are Semaj, a personal trainer fighting to build a better future; Layla, his girlfriend, who carries abandonment and trust issues connected to her incarcerated biological father; and Diane, Layla’s mother, who feels invisible within her marriage to a wealthy former NBA player.
The film examines how unhealed trauma can pass between generations and quietly shape romantic relationships. It also challenges the assumption that wealth, status, or longevity automatically makes a relationship healthy. Semaj and Diane’s connection is morally complicated, but it grows from a deeply human need to feel seen, encouraged, and emotionally safe.
I am uniquely suited to tell this story because I wrote the original Next Lifetime novel and adapted it into the screenplay. As the writer and director, I have carried these characters from the page into production while protecting the emotional truth at the heart of their journeys. I understand the tension between pursuing an ambitious dream and maintaining relationships with people who may not share or support that vision.
This story is timely because audiences are having more honest conversations about generational trauma, incarceration’s impact on families, emotional availability, and unhealthy relationship patterns. Through a diverse ensemble of characters and perspectives, Next Lifetime presents these issues as universal human experiences and asks whether love can heal old wounds or create new ones when it arrives under the wrong circumstances.
Meet The Filmmakers
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Jay Anthony
Writer/Director
Jay Anthony is a filmmaker and author from Bakersfield, California, and the creator of Next Lifetime. Working under the Jay Anthony Films brand, he wrote the novel and screenplay and directs the feature film adaptation.
His storytelling explores ambition, healing, complex relationships, and the consequences of love and timing. The Next Lifetime screenplay received an Honorable Mention at the 2025 Urban Media Makers Film Festival in Atlanta.
Through Next Lifetime Feature Film LLC, Jay leads the project's creative development and production while building support to bring the film to audiences. His work on the project brings together independent filmmaking, community collaboration, and a commitment to telling emotionally grounded stories.
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Joe Katches
Director of Photography
Joe Katches is a cinematographer, director of photography, and camera operator with an extensive body of work across narrative features, short films, television, documentaries, commercials, and music videos. Through his company Story Lit Films, he has photographed numerous independent productions and collaborated with Amazon Prime/Raw TV, CBS, Transition Studios, Naknek Films, Bright Coast Productions, and I AM Studios.His key credits include Dead in the Water as Director of Photography for Raw TV/Amazon Prime, American Gospel 3 for Transition Studios, and Slayer Chronicles as Co-Director of Photography for Megareel Entertainment. His commercial work includes projects connected to DoorDash, Fortnite, Virgin Cruises, Golftec, SkyTrak, NUUN Hydration, and Bogle Wines.
Alongside his production work, Joe has taught advanced cinematography and color grading at Maine Media and presents cinematography seminars through Story Lit Films.
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Nefty Quijada
Director / Cinematographer
Nefty Quijada is a freelance film director and cinematographer based in Los Angeles, California. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in TV, Film & Media Studies from California State University, Los Angeles, and an Associate of Arts in Theater Arts from Bakersfield College.His filmography spans narrative shorts, web series, and music videos shot across Los Angeles, New York City, and Tokyo, including ongoing collaborations with LaynoProd on projects such as "Cinema," "Inception," and "Pink Elephants." He wrote, directed, produced, and edited the web series God Or Me, and has contributed to independent productions including Missing Hours, Small Town Punks, and The Last Text I Never Sent.
Beyond directing and cinematography, his skill set includes screenwriting, casting, gaffing, audio engineering, music composition, post-production editing, and graphic design.
Your Help
NEXT LIFETIME is a fiscally sponsored project of Cinematography for Actors, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Your donation will be tax-deductible!