Downeast Trailer (2012)

The slogan on the 'Welcome to Maine' sign leading into Gouldsboro reads "Open for Business," but the recent closure of the sardine canning factory has brought this small coastal town to a total standstill. Its laid-off residents—mostly 70-year-olds—just want to get back to work, so when Italian immigrant Antonio Bussone arrives from Boston aiming to open a new lobster processing plant, most of the local labor welcomes him with open arms. After all, they're sick of sending their lobsters to Canada when there's a ready-and-willing workforce to process them at home. So why is tapping into federal relief funds to finance the plant turning into the biggest struggle of Antonio's life?

Acclaimed directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin shed new light on the trying task of putting America back to work in Downeast. But this is no hard-hitting, in-your-face exposé—their style is gentle, poignant, poetic. They meditate on the morbid beauty of fish sloshing across the assembly line and quietly observe the petty political squabbles that hamper progress. And—in a man who's willing to risk it all to succeed, and a generation that still gives 110 percent—they find hope.