“Downeast,” a Film About Prospect Harbor’s Lobster Processing Plant

by Sandra Dinsmore

 

On Saturday, January 12th, Ellsworth’s “The Grand” theatre presented David Redmon and Ashley Sabin’s film Downeast. Part of the Camden Film Festival, Downeast is beautifully shot and edited. Through scenes of stacked lobster traps on a wharf, spectacular autumn foliage on a winding country road, and pristine snow falling on the dock and village, the film shows what draws people to the state. It also describes the difficulty of trying to earn a living in eastern Maine.

When the Stinson sardine cannery, then owned by Bumble Bee Foods LLC, closed on April 18th, 2010, it was not only the state’s, but also the country’s last sardine cannery. Of the 128 people who lost their jobs that day, many of the cannery’s older women workers lost the only job they had ever held. Standing in an assembly line all day packing sardines had been one of few jobs available for downeast Maine women.

The film starts with thousands and thousands of herring being trapped in a net. It then moves from the nets being emptied to the assembly line at Bumble Bee, with men and women, young and old, cutting and packing herring.

Built in 1906 in Prospect Harbor, part of the Town of Gouldsboro, the cannery employed generations of area people.

Until it closed, there were really only two occupations for Washington County men and women. Men fished or worked at the cannery and women either processed crabs brought home by family members, or they worked at Stinson’s.

After a scene showing cannery workers leaving for the last time, former employees are seen talking about losing their jobs. One woman says she cried for two weeks when the cannery closed.

A year and a half later, in September of 2011, the owner of Massachusetts-based Live Lobster, Antonio Bussone, buys the cannery. This gives its laid off workers hope for re-employment, but that Bussone plans to turn the cannery into a lobster processing plant raises the hackles of area lobster dealers, among them Gouldsboro selectmen.

The townspeople are seen at a meeting voting unanimously for a federal grant for the processing plant. Then on a black screen the following words appear: “The selectmen ignored the vote.”

The next scene, a sentimental one, shows Bussone at his desk with three framed photographs: one of his wife, one of his wife with their two young sons and baby, and one of his baby daughter looking up at him with great big dark eyes. Bussone says that people say business is business. But he insists, “No, it is not. Business is personal.” And then he talks about the effect his little girl has on him when she looks at him with those big brown eyes.

In late November, after processing lobster for only a few months, a $90,000 check from a customer bounces, which, in turn, makes Bussone’s paychecks bounce to the fishermen who sell to him, not only in Maine, but also in Massachusetts.

Bussone makes the checks good, but damage has been done. The board of the Finance Authority of ME, (FAME), which had approved, but not delivered a loan of $750,000, reneges on the loan because of the bounced checks.

The film’s next scene shows a Christmas party at the plant. The workers, mostly the older women who have learned how to process lobster—not much different from processing crab, which fishermen’s wives learn as girls—are happy to be working again and tell Bussone so.

But although area newspapers claim Bussone has received the FAME loan of $750,000 and a grant Bussone was promised for about the same amount, neither is true. As Bussone’s business falters, he sits at his desk watching a film of a fishing vessel sink. This scene and that of Bussone with the family pictures make the film seem biased towards Bussone. On the other hand, scenes showing townspeople voting for the grant and the selectmen ignoring it along with scenes showing the selectmen and First Selectman Dana Rice’s comments make the film seem biased against the selectmen and Rice.

On March 23, 2012, a year to the day after Bussone closed on the Prospect Harbor cannery property, TD Bank freezes all Live Lobster’s accounts and pulls Bussone’s line of credit. Unable to buy, sell, or do any business, Bussone orders the closure of all his lobster operations and furloughs employees without further pay.

A month later, because he has been unable to raise enough money to restart his business, TD bank sues Bussone, who declares bankruptcy, ends his business, and takes a job with another shellfish company.

Legislator Chapman On “Downeast”

State legislator Ralph Chapman attended the film. Chapman represents House District 37 for six coastal Hancock County towns: Blue Hill, Brooksville, Castine, Penobscot, Sedgwick, and Surry. He also serves on the Marine Resources Committee, which oversees Maine’s Department of Marine Resources. Although Chapman said he found the film beautiful and haunting, he said his interest in the film relates to the behavior of state government trying to bring businesses into the state’s high poverty areas.

“This part of the story was not presented in the film,” Chapman said. “As the public press was reporting financial problems with the new start-up, I was interested to know why the state’s interest to make it succeed was failing.”

Upon researching the issue, Chapman said he came to the conclusion that the state “made a series of missteps in its intent to attract a viable business to locate in Prospect Harbor. Whether or not by design,” Chapman declared, “The state participated in the demise of the venture rather than supporting it.”

The film, Chapman noted, did not identify the source of the $750,000 loan that was promised, but never delivered. Chapman found that the Finance Authority of ME (FAME) board approved the loan in July of 2011. He said FAME normally closes loans within thirty days, and sometimes, if expedited, more quickly. That customer’s check to Live Lobster didn’t bounce until late November.

“The first visible cash flow problem of the lobster processor (bounced checks) occurred more than four months [after FAME approved the $750,000 loan], and within days of public press accounts that the loan had been processed and delivered (which it had not),” Chapman reported.

“I think it obvious,” he declared, “that the state’s economic development effort in this case, which included promises of help, was terminated in a non-transparent fashion. The lingering question,” he said, “is whether the state acted prudently in terminating help to a non-viable business or whether the terminated help caused the failure.”

Chapman stated that he hopes this film will help generate interest in identifying ways to successfully recruit businesses that actually help relieve, rather than perpetuate, the downeast region’s poverty.

FMI:<http://carnivalesquefilms.com/films/downeast/>
http://www.lef-foundation.org/DefaultPermissions/NewEngland/tabid/160/Default.aspx
For screening dates: ben@camdenfilmfest.org h