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The contributions that the New Bedford Film Festival is making to the city have only just begun.
For the founder of the event, filmmaker Ethan de Aguiar, New Bedford is a location with ample dimensions to capitalize on — a unique destination that can benefit even further from an influx of movie makers and related industries that can tap into the city’s people and resources.
After traveling throughout the nation, the 35-year-old de Aguiar purports that New Bedford is a special experience that filmmakers can take advantage of, resulting in economic expansion for an array of businesses throughout the region. Films bring more to a location than actors, directors and cameras — they bring money and investment, and they are likely to be produced in communities that offer a wide swath of skills and settings.
From hotels and restaurants, to seascapes and historic architecture, in addition to educational and blue collar opportunities, de Aguiar’s vision for film in New Bedford is hearty and ambitious. He envisions a dynamic city that is the backdrop for films of all stripes, including, but not limited to, feature films, music videos and promotional commercials. And with the success of the first New Bedford Film Festival last April, de Aguiar is eager and inspired by the potential he sees for the event, the organization and the city. The NBFF is morphing from a four-day event into an entity that will be working year round to increase New Bedford’s exposure in the film world, hosting events and luring film makers from all sectors of the industry.
De Aguiar has seen what works and what doesn’t and is sharing his skills and perspectives with the local film community. He is not alone in his determination — the NBFF includes a board of more than a dozen local artists and business-minded collaborators who are aiming to expand beyond downtown and involve as much of the city as possible in their vision.
“The New Bedford Film Festival is really great for tourism,” said Fairhaven-based filmmaker Alyssa Botelho, a festival board member whose film, “To Dust All Return” was screened at the event. “It’s great for the local filmmakers to have a chance to show their work and to connect with other filmmakers and strengthen the film community here, but it’s also great for bringing people into New Bedford and the South Coast. We had people from Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, and Germany. They got to see our beautiful place in the world when they otherwise might not have come here. It’s great for local businesses — the restaurants, the hotels and the stores.”
De Aguiar has been enthralled with filmmaking and storytelling since he first picked up a video recorder as an early teen, filming his family’s events and vacations, as well as videos of his skateboarding friends. When he got to Bridgewater State University he realized the potential of film, both creatively and commercially. He began his career filming wedding videos but soon realized his passion for film was much more expansive, perhaps boundless. Today he combines his formal film gigs with what he calls “passion projects,” films he creates for no pay that contribute to his portfolio and online presence, while simultaneously helping him to grow as a filmmaker. Much of his work is available on YouTube.
De Aguiar said he anticipates that he will be launching his own storytelling company this fall, Eight Arm Creations, which will specialize in the creation, production and marketing of content for clients.
Last April, de Aguiar was the spearhead for the New Bedford Film Festival, which screened 100 movies from around the nation at locations throughout downtown New Bedford. A third of the offerings were created by local filmmakers, and the event also included workshops on a variety of film-related subjects as well as networking opportunities. Using the inspiration he’s experienced by attending film festivals throughout America, he said he is eager to support film-related projects throughout the year and throughout the city, presented by the NBFF organization.
De Aguiar talked with The Light about the film festival and its future, the virtues of New Bedford for the film industry, working with local businesses, as well as his personal career as a filmmaker.
New Bedford Light: How did the New Bedford Film Festival come to fruition and why did you think you could pull it off?
Ethan de Aguiar: Back in 2022 I made a documentary for New Bedford called “Love Letters for New Bedford.” It was basically a documentary about the arts and culture scene in New Bedford. We interviewed a bunch of artists in the area, and they talked about not just their own projects but the artistic community in New Bedford. We submitted it to film festivals all around the country and the world. It went on a run of film festivals for a year. We submitted it to 35 and we got 16 selections and four wins, three of which were international awards for Best Documentary. So when we could finally premier it publicly (some film festivals want exclusivity), we did a public screening at the New Bedford Whaling Museum for people to see the film.
That experience was my first time being in film festivals for any project I’ve ever done. I always thought that world was kind of like Sundance and Tribeca. It felt like the Grammys or something. I’m too unknown to be in those spaces, but it’s not true at all. Any city, really, can start a film festival and do this. … So we were like, “Why don’t we round up all of the local films, the working professionals in the area and then just try to make this happen.”
Me and a few people, we ended up making a whole board of directors of about 12 people, and we started talking about the early stages last year. In four to five months we put it together. It wasn’t just about bringing people together to enjoy films, but introducing people from outside of New Bedford to New Bedford, so we wanted to use this as a tourism driver that would be introductory to the city. So we partnered with local businesses for a multitude of things — some were businesses we could screen at, like Groundwork, Up the Road, Ground Floor Coffee, New Bedford Whaling Museum, Co-Creative Center, Harbor Hotel. We wanted to bring everybody downtown to work with local businesses.
We wanted to partner up. If you’re a restaurant maybe you give one free drink for somebody that bought a ticket for the film festival? Or if you’re a retail business it’s 10% off if you come in with a badge? Get people involved in the film festival in some way so they could make out from it. From the beginnings of screenings to the end it was about six hours. We don’t expect people to sit through all of that so we encouraged them to walk through downtown and explore.
After I visited other film festivals and I talked to people, I said, “Why doesn’t New Bedford have one of these? Somebody should do it — We should do it!” It was a collective of everybody’s experiences, not just in the film industry but in film festivals and things like that.
NBL: How have you taken cues and ideas for the film festival from other cities and events that you’ve visited? What were the influences for the New Bedford festival?
EdeA: The New Bedford Film Festival is a conglomeration of things that I’ve seen. To be honest with you, and this is no knock to other cities, it seems like other cities are doing things that are one part of what we’re trying to do. I’ll go to another city and say, “Wow, this is really cool, but why don’t they try this? Or do that?” And then I’m like, “New Bedford is already doing so many of these things.” Other people are starting to catch on. In Fall River, a lot of the arts organizations and people I talk to, they look at what New Bedford has done and they think they can take those examples and start doing it in Fall River.
All cities have the means to do it themselves. I just want to bring everyone to the table. We all win when all come together. I think the whole South Coast has something unique to offer. If we need to be the tip of the spear, then so be it, we’ll take that challenge. I just think it’s going to work. And again, I see echoes of it in some other cities, but they’ll be doing something that I want New Bedford to start doing, but then they’re not doing things that New Bedford has already done. So it’s about building it.
Outsiders come here and they’re like, “We didn’t think a place like this existed, you guys are doing so much and you’re still continuing to do more.”
NBL: In what ways did local businesses contribute to the festival?
EdeA: So when people bought tickets to the festival they got an access badge. A lot of people bought All Access/All VIP, so they got all four days. So if anybody comes into a business with a badge, meaning that they are a patron of our film festival, we opened it up to businesses to do whatever they were comfortable doing. Some people did 10% or 15% off of your purchase. Whaler’s Tavern, a local restaurant that even some locals don’t know about, were offering a free cup of clam chowder and that was great for them because they’re known for their clam chowder. You’ll think, “Wow, this is really good. Now I’m going to stay for a meal or a drink, or I’m going to come back tomorrow.”
We did one unique thing that I want to do a lot more of. We went to four businesses — Pour Farm Tavern, 222 Union, PLAY Arcade and Besteas — and they created a specialty drink for us that were all themes of the films we were screening. Then I went into each business and created a promotional video for each of them. It was a lot of fun and it gives more of a community feel. People are walking around downtown and they see New Bedford Film Festival partners and they’ll want to go in and check it out. Then you’ll go in there for the experience and have a specialty drink. It has the feel of a real community affair. The Whaling Museum was offering discounts for their tickets, so out-of-towners could come in and experience the Whaling Museum. Come to the film festival and get the New Bedford experience.
NBL: Would you consider your first year to be a success?
EdeA: Call me biased, but I consider it a massive success. I think that we exceeded expectations. Not just from outsiders’ points of view, but even within ourselves. We’re all idealistic people, we’re shooting for the moon. We didn’t get to do everything we wanted to do, but we all took a step back and said, “Wow, we really did this. This came out incredible.”
We sent out surveys for feedback and there was a resounding … everybody loved it. Even people that had constructive criticism. We want that because we want to get better at it. The guests really got a sense of what New Bedford is like.
NBL: What did you experience this year that you’re going to need to work on?
EdeA: I think, first and foremost, just technical stuff — better projection and sound. We screened 100 films over three days. It’s a four-day festival but the first day is half-a-day with the opening night. We’re not really screening films that day.
I love that we screened 100 films. We were so ambitious in our first year. We really made an impression, but we didn’t have to be afraid of downsizing for the sake of quality. Focus on quality over quantity. We don’t need another 100 films. Next year, we’ll do 60 or 75, closer to 75. We want our festival to be something that film makers strive to be included in.
One thing that people said is that they wanted to go to one screening but there was also another screening … happening at the same time at a different location. So we want to give people more opportunities for that.
Also, we had a lot of workshops where we invited professionals to come in and run workshops on color grading, and how to fund your film, stuff like that. That’s great info that’s going to be helpful to a lot of people. We want more time to also focus on that aspect. I think it’s just a scheduling thing, managing it more.
NBL: You’re planning to go beyond just the film festival. What is your vision for the future?
EdeA: Our vision is really to just expand the film capabilities of the city, to really bring the film industry here, but something that’s grassroots or organically home grown. We don’t want Hollywood to come in and us to sell out to Hollywood. We want to be able to situate ourselves so that we can handle a Hollywood production coming into the city, but when they get here they’re playing by our rules. They’re in our hometown, our backyard. This is how we do things here.
I went to a conference up in Boston where one of the sessions that they had was a talk about the Mass Film Commission and they talked to location managers from the film industry, a costume designer and all of these people are always looking for unique places. The costume designer was like, “When I have to design costumes for a production I don’t want to shop on Amazon or go to Target or whatever. I want to go to a thrift store in the middle of town that’s run by local people because that’s where you’re going to find the unique things where even the costume itself has a story to tell.” There’s a lot to offer in New Bedford and that’s what we’re trying to show people.
NBL: How did you get into filmmaking?
EdeA: I was always interested in filming family vacations, home movies and things like that, using my family’s camcorder to just film random things. Then when I got to high school I met a group of kids that got me into skateboarding, and most of them are still my friends to this day. Documenting the good times I had as a teenager, skating with them, hanging out with them. We were just documenting it. The more I did it the more I understood what I actually like about filming, what I like about crafting edits together to make videos — and that all came down to storytelling. So I really liked hearing stories and telling stories, sharing these experiences with people. That led to me taking TV production courses in high school and that got me interested in taking Communications courses at Bridgewater State. and it pretty much took off from there.
Once I started in high school I didn’t have any plans of stopping, but it was still kind of a hobby at that point. In college I realized I could … make this into a profession. College teaches you how to work in a film TV studio, so once I got out of college I got into the wedding industry, working for a guy, and in less than two years I was just like, “This isn’t for me creatively.” It was boring and redundant. But that was the proof I needed, that “Hey, I just documented this event and turned it into a story in video form and people are paying for that.” So that was the realization I could do this on my own. I’m doing this already, so I took the leap to go into business for myself.
NBL: What are you going to offer people with your new company?
EdeA: Everything. Video services, social media services, all of that stuff. The unique thing is the storytelling aspect. Every filmmaker is a storyteller, every human is a storyteller really. I take a primary focus on that with whatever I’m doing. A lot of times I work with a client from the conceptual stage and have an initial conversation with them, get a feel for what they are as a business, what their mission statement is, what their goals are with whatever particular project they want to hire me for.
I can help them craft the story they want to tell. A lot of times it’s getting clients to think deeper about what they’re trying to do. A great example: The YMCA hired me to do their “Farm to Go” video. They created the event around their Share the Harvest Farm in their YMCA Dartmouth branch. They’re a nonprofit volunteer farm, and 100% of their produce gets donated out to the community.
So every year to raise funds they invite a bunch of chefs from the area to create a dinner for people to enjoy. It used to be in person but with COVID-19 they made this “To Go” version of it and it was successful, so they kept repeating it every year. So two or three years in a row they had me cover the event, but then this past year I was like, “Hey, why don’t we treat this more like Chef’s Table, where we interview the chef, we get a deeper story behind why the farm started, why Sharing the Harvest started.”
It was great — I got to interview Ashley (Brister) at Share the Harvest farm. I got to interview chefs from around the area, just getting a deeper story about why they participate in this, why it’s important, why you should support farmers and local businesses. How that whole ecosystem works together, and that was literally just me, sitting and having a conversation with Robin Branco from the YMCA, and pitching her this idea and she loved it.
So, to circle back to your original question, I think that’s the unique thing we’re offering, from both a creative perspective and an audience member’s perspective. Just diving deeper into a story, telling more of a substantial story than just a simple highlight of some event that happened.
I’ll go anywhere where there’s a cool story. I’ve done work in California, we did a film pilot in New Jersey. Anywhere. I’m going to Lisbon, Portugal, for vacation in the fall, and I’m not going to be able to stop myself from working, and I’m even trying to turn it into half-work, half-vacation.
NBL: How do these videos get out to the public? How do you market them?
EdeA: A lot of them are posted on websites, YouTube, social media. The power of people sharing things and word of mouth.
Obviously I’m working on a website now because that’s important to have a central location for my work, but word of mouth is still the greatest way to get yourself out there as an artist, because it’s not just about somebody seeing your work and forming their own opinion about your work, but it’s about getting the credibility of “Oh, he’s great to work with. We originally started with this idea but he gave us this idea, and made it 10 times better.” That kind of thing. When you get that kind of reinforcement from clients that you’ve worked with, there’s nothing better than that. And I think word of mouth has only gotten better with the internet and social media. You can spread the word a lot faster and get in touch with people a lot easier.
NBL: How many films have you done to this point? What is your work schedule like? Is it ebb and flow?
EdeA: One month you could do 10 social media videos or you could work on one documentary that takes three months. It’s always fluctuating. I’ve done hundreds of films, big and small.
I consider all of my works to be films, because of the approach I take. If I’m doing a short documentary or a promo for a small business I take that filmmaker’s approach to it because we’re telling a story. We’re not just creating a commercial. There’s going to be promotion and marketing because of the way you share it, but I like to approach it as if it’s a film.
NBL: So every film is a story?
EdeA: Yes, exactly. I did a video for New Bedford Food Tours. I got to go on a food tour with them and give that kind of experiential kind of a video. I look at that not as a commercial for New Bedford Food Tours. This is an experience. You’re a fly on the wall tagging along on this food tour. You can use it for marketing and promotional purposes, but approaching stories that way and treating businesses that way is the unique thing that I try to offer people.
NBL: What kind of work have you done in the past? What does your portfolio say about you?
EdeA: Literally everything from wedding videos, music videos, social media promotion, commercial-style videos, campaign videos for businesses. I’ve worked on mockumentaries, pilot episodes for TV series — one of them was local. People can get an idea of who I am and what I would be through Instagram and YouTube. When people really follow along on my journey and watch my YouTube videos and my professional work, I think then they’ll get a real sense of who I am and my style.
I like to have fun. I think one of the things I really have a knack for is taking the mundane and showing the beauty in it. I do a vlog on YouTube and something as simple as making coffee in the morning. I kind of turn that into something amazing because there is that feeling of waking up in the morning and you’re groggy and you have that first sip of coffee and it’s like you’re a whole new person. I’ll make a whole video just around that idea. I guess in a subconscious way I try to get people to realize the beauty that’s all around us. The little things we take for granted, like your morning cup of coffee.
I’m going 24-7, 365 days a year. I’m never not working, whether it’s for a client or my own marketing, my own passion project kind of thing. I’m always working.
NBL: How often do you do passion projects? What are those about?
EdeA: Not as often as I’d like, but as often as I can.
NBL: What becomes of them? Do you put them out there for people to enjoy?
EdeA: At the end of the day, if I do a passion project, I’m expecting to not get any money for it. If I can find a grant, or somebody wants to sponsor it, then great. But I just love what I do, and every project that I work on as a passion project is an opportunity for me to grow my skill set, or try something new and experiment with something.
The reason I started my vlog on YouTube was for me to document my journey as a filmmaker, and having that to look back on 10, 20, 30 years from now. But also as a way to be creative. I’m always watching YouTube videos or studying film makers like Hollywood directors and even YouTubers to learn new things and new ways of doing things from different perspectives. I’m always consuming that kind of content.
NBL: Talk about the vlog.
EdeA: I started it in late 2020. From the first episode I wanted to focus on quality not quantity. Right now I’m only working on my ninth episode, and some of them are Part 1 and Part 2, so this is actually my 11th episode. I do it as often as I can, but only when I have something substantial. I’m not going to put out a vlog just because I have to each month or something like that. I’m going to do it when I have a good story behind it.
I want to do it more often. The subject matter is a couple of years ago when I went out to California to shoot a music video and I recorded the whole trip out there, the whole experience. It was only my second time out there and I turned that into an episode — behind the scenes of making this music video, which also offered promotion for the video and the musicians involved. And the second part was about a vacation in Los Angeles.
NBL: What became of that video?
EdeA: A lot of people liked it. I put all of it on YouTube.
The tourism video where I was just documenting my experience in L.A., the New Bedford Tourist Department was like, “Hey, that was a pretty fun video, how can we mesh that idea that you’ve done and make a fresh, new video?”
NBL: In what ways are you unique as a filmmaker?
EdeA: I think the most beautiful part of being an artist is whatever genre it is that you’re putting so much of yourself into that nobody can copy it. I can give somebody all of my gear, all of my clients, all of my work … They won’t produce something that I could produce. Just like I can’t produce what they can produce. The beautiful part about being a creative business owner is the unique part of it that I’m offering is myself — my style, the things I think are cool and beautiful about the subject matter. It’s my perspective seen through my lens, and I’m offering that in collaboration with whoever I’m working with.
Sean McCarthy is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to The New Bedford Light.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
