New BrunswickA retired autoworker and film buff from northeast New Brunswick hopes a film festival and collective will spark more interest in storytelling and open a portal to job opportunities in the global content creation market. 2nd annual Heron Bay Film Festival will be in DalhousieJennifer Sweet · CBC News · Posted: Oct 15, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours agoDavid Peterson, a retired autoworker and film buff from northeast New Brunswick, hopes a film festival will collective spark more interest in storytelling. (Submitted by David Petersen)As many a small-town New Brunswicker can tell you, sometimes you’ve just got to create your own fun and opportunities. That’s what David Petersen has set out to do by organizing a film festival and opening a shared studio space in his home community on the north shore in Restigouche County. “I don’t drink any more. I don’t smoke any more. And I don’t have any of these bad habits. So what am I going to spend my money on, right? I might as well do this. I like films.”The second annual Heron Bay Film Festival is scheduled to take place Thursday through Saturday at the L.E. Reinsborough Community Theatre in Dalhousie.It’s a fundraiser for a group called the nbNorEast Content Creators Collective. “If I make money at this, I get to keep that studio open on Main Street downtown longer,” Petersen said.“And the more I’m open … the more I can motivate people to come in and maybe start a podcast, maybe do a livestream on something they’re interested in … maybe come in and ask, ‘Hey, I have an idea for a short film. Do you know anybody that could work on it?��’”In the last couple of decades, Dalhousie has gone through a significant decline in employment and quality of life, Petersen said.“There’s some room here for some kind of new economy,” he said. “And the new economy happens to be either the internet or social media. There’s people making money out of working beyond just the perimeter of their own little town.”Petersen is investing his time in trying to get others to put some of their own time into exploring ways to promote their business, their art or even their well-being, since creative expression is good for mental health, he said.Petersen studied theatre and did some acting, playwriting and filmmaking in his twenties and thirties. Then, he went to work at a Chrysler plant in Brampton, Ont., where he built cars on an assembly line for 20 years. One of the films in the festival is called Retrograde, directed by Sandy Hunter, about the solar eclipse in April 2024. (Submitted by David Petersen)After he retired, he moved home and got an itch to return to his former passion.“I couldn’t really stop that flood of interest. I’m interested in people. I’m interested in their stories.”He opened a studio, where he encouraged others to come in and tell their stories, and he started a YouTube channel, called Oracle Images.In the last two years, he’s been compiling a list of people who have useful skills and fascinating stories.In Bathurst, he’s made a connection with Melynda Jarratt of Maison Doucet Hennessy House.Jarratt says the festival and collective are a fantastic, important and long overdue development for arts and culture in northern New Brunswick.“We’re sort of trying to push each other forward,” Petersen said.But he credits the idea for the film festival to Pierre Huard.Huard worked with Petersen about 25 years ago on a film about the Second World War internment camp in the Minto area.Huard has been living in Fredericton for some time but, like Petersen, is originally from Dalhousie.The two men tried a couple of years ago to organize a film screening during the town’s annual Bon Ami summer festival.When that didn’t work out, Huard came up with the idea for a standalone film event.There are all kinds of artists around, Huard said, and he’s pleased that Petersen is creating space for them.“When you live in a small town, if you have artistic inklings you tend to hide them — unless you’re a guitar player or something,” Huard said.“Now, they can show their work or at least meet like-minded people.”The first edition of the festival had 40 films over a day and a half.This year’s will have 70 over three days. Some were made in New Brunswick, which Petersen is keen to promote.Back to Camp 41 by Greg Hemmings is about a conservation biologist who studied the Amazon rainforest and is narrated by famous nature documentarian David Attenborough.Retrograde by Sandy Hunter is about the April 2024 solar eclipse and had collaboration from a scientist who lives in Florenceville-Bristol.Beauty Rides a Lion by Diana Williamson of Dalhousie is a documentary about an aging Hollywood starlet.There will be many others, as well as a tribute to a New Brunswick filmmaker who died last year, Chris Harrigan.The festival will include a tribute to New Brunswick filmmaker Chris Harrigan, who died last year. (Submitted by David Petersen)Harrigan was in Ecuador, where he was working on a film project, when he suffered a heart attack, said Petersen.“Chris was a very strong social activist voice. Some of his material is really hard-hitting.”That included a short film about a community that was fighting a drug cartel, he said.A half-hour retrospective will be part of the program on Saturday evening.This year’s festival will also include films from outside New Brunswick and around the world, submitted through the third-party platform, FilmFreeway, chosen for having good stories or cinematic qualities, he said.Most are about 15 minutes long. They’ll be screened Thursday and Friday evening and Saturday afternoon and evening, he said.The theatre holds 500 people. Petersen is hoping to well exceed the 65 tickets sold last year.ABOUT THE AUTHORJennifer Sweet has been telling the stories of New Brunswickers for over 20 years. She is originally from Bathurst, got her journalism degree from Carleton University and is based in Fredericton. She can be reached at 451-4176 or jennifer.sweet@cbc.ca.Shift
Local film festival returning to northern N.B. town
