After moving to Toledo as a teenager in the nineties, Francisco Aguilar recalls, “it looked like the town from the movie Teen Wolf. I thought to myself, now this is America.”
Aguilar came to Toledo after living in Miami since age five. Born in Nicaragua to a 15-year-old mother, Martha Morago., Aguilar grew up in a country in the midst of a revolution.
Because of the ongoing Contra War, he and his mother were forced to live on the streets because her family “couldn’t afford to feed another mouth.” Living on park benches and begging for money, Moraga made a tough decision, separating them for nearly thirty years.
In an effort to reunite with his mother and honor their relationship, Aguilar set off to create a bittersweet documentary, A Better Tomorrow, set to premier on Saturday, July 18 at The Moxie Live.
The reel story
After a number of missed opportunities to reconnect, Aguilar and his mother came back into contact several years ago. Aguilar was able to travel back to Nicaragua for the first time since leaving, thanks to the generosity of his then-girlfriend, who purchased him an open ticket to fly down.
While the visit prompted many emotions for Aguilar, the concept for the documentary materialized upon news that his mother was seriously ill. What was originally intended to be a film about the mother-son reunion, took a bittersweet turn when Aguilar’s brother contacted him to tell him their mother was critically ill. Aguilar and his creative partner, Emilio Areas, made a pact to shoot a film about the reunion with his mother during his February birthday.
“My mother passed away on January 22 (of this year), exactly a month before my birthday on February 22. At that point, I met with Emilio to discuss the documentary, but this time it was to be different.” Aguilar recalls. “Instead… I was to document my journey back home to bury my mother. The journey focuses on family and how, with family, one can overcome any obstacles set in one’s life.”
Making it happen
Aguilar, a caseworker at Lucas County Jobs and Family Services, hasn’t always been a filmmaker. He met creative partner, Emilio Areas, at the University of Toledo while studying political science. “Emilio is a lot younger than me and brings a very fresh and unique angle to the project… A lot had to do with the fact that Emilio has Nicaraguan parents and we both shared the same passion for our country of Nicaragua,” Aguilar recalls.
Despite being shot entirely on iPhones, A Better Tomorrow is visually impressive. What’s more is that Aguilar endured a number of trials just to get back to Nicaragua: after booking tickets, he found out his passport had expired, prompting a last minute road trip to New York with his sister to get an expedited passport.
From that point forward, it was all an adventure, most of which ends up on-screen. All except a mythical, beautiful shot of the plane touching down over water at dawn, that Aguilar’s seatmate shot on her iPhone. Aguilar’s trek from Toledo back home and the the characters he meets along the way are intriguing.
Aguilar and Areas insist that they aren’t Latino filmmakers, but just storytellers who happen to be Latino. The creative duo have more in the works, including a project Aguilar is currently developing about rural Ohio migrant workers.
A Better Tomorrow will be premiered with a free screening at 7pm on Saturday, July 18 at The Moxie Live, 1205 Adams St. 419-320-1075. themoxielive.com