A battle scene for Rebel

Females in Film | Filmmaking | Interviews | Massachusetts

María Agui Carter on Making “Rebel”

María Agui Carter talks about her documentary Rebel, based on the true story of Loreta Velazquez, Confederate soldier turned Union Spy.

20 Mar , 2016  

Written by Catherine Stewart | Posted by:

Fellow female filmmakers discuss work, life, and more as part of Females in Film. For this installment, NewEnglandFilm.com writer Catherine Stewart talks to filmmaker María Agui Carter as her latest work, Rebel, tours six cities for Women’s History Month. The tour concludes in Boston, MA on Tuesday March 22, 2016 at 7pm in the Paramount Theater as part of Anna Feder’s curated Bright Light Series.

This series of articles features interviews with established and emerging female filmmakers with strong connections to New England, as well as prominent industry figures from our region. Filmmaker Catherine Stewart discusses distribution, finding work, making connections, and handling collaborations, along with whatever else comes along. We encourage you to join the conversation here on NewEnglandFilm.com or on Twitter using #femalesinfilm.

Originally from Ecuador, María Agui Carter is a screenwriter and director, with a passion for storytelling that inspires social change. She is the founder of Iguana Films, and a Professor of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College. She specializes in visually arresting and complex storytelling, working in both English and Spanish language films.

“We had our first television when my mother brought me to the US at seven,” explains Agui Carter. “I loved that magical box and was riveted to the worlds it presented, but I never saw Latinos like me unless they were housekeepers or harlots, carpenters or criminals.”

María Agui Carter

María Agui Carter

That lack of diversity was not only in the media however, she says, “In school, I did not hear about the Spanish history of the Americas, including North America, and the stories or contributions of our Latino descendants that subsequently mixed with Native and African peoples for generations. In books, news and films we hear about recent immigration of Latinos to the US, but ignore centuries of Hispanic presence in the Americas, North and South.”

Determined to learn more Agui Carter went in search of the rich legacy of Latinos in literature and the arts, politics and history. She wanted to learn about her own culture and to counter the negativity she faced when viewing American media.

Agui Carter’s research, and persistence, led her to a subject that would later become the central focus of her largest work, Rebel. This film follows the contested history of Civil War soldier and spy Loreta Velazquez. “I had worked as a staff producer at WGBH and made everything from vérité documentaries in local television to archival based historical documentaries for national television. I had worked with smaller and much larger budgets, but I had not filmed narrative fiction, much less period and war sequences,” says Agui Carter.

“What most excited me was the debate over her very existence,” continues Agui Carter. Controversy over Velazquez’s memoir and its authenticity became the basis for Rebel, and an exploration into how society understands and interprets history and politics as a national narrative. “Some say she was a prostitute, some that she was a figment of her male editor’s imagination,” says Agui Carter. “I believe she was erased, deliberately, because of her social message and her radical gender transgressions.”

Prepping make-up on the set of Rebel

Prepping make-up on the set of Rebel

Agui Carter wanted to bring scenes of Loreta’s memoir and imagination to life and chose to create live action dramatic scenes to recreate a civil war story that focused on Latino women. She had to learn how to work with actors, recreate the material world of the 19th century, and shoot war scenes with explosives – all on a tight budget.

“To prove I could direct actors in dramatic recreations with high production values before raising my production funding I had to get creative,” explains Agui Carter. “I got permission to shoot my trailer during an existing recreation of a small battle in Virginia, and blocked my actors in the foreground while armies charged and fought in large scale battle re-enactments.”

They used smaller apertures, and wide lenses to make it appear that the actors were part of the columns of charging soldiers, but that wasn’t all. “I secured historical museum houses and swapped out some of the furniture so my actors could sit on the chairs and at the tables, and got million dollar set designs.” The hard work paid off, and this fundraising trailer secured production funding.

“The final film came in under a million dollars, but no one believes me when I tell them that because it looks like an infinitely more expensive film. So much was done with smoke and mirrors.”

The process was long – the small crew negotiated locations and shot in piecemeal over years as money came in. “There were little miracles all along the way but I was very determined to pay everyone fair wages for their work on the film. I never skimped on things like lighting and professional personnel and I put my money on the screen.”

Agui Carter served as set designer, producer, scriptwriter, director, post-production supervisor, props and continuity, sometime line producer, production accountant, and pitched in whenever she could to move the project forward. She taught herself edit so she could put together assemblies and supervised her own budgets. Meanwhile, during the twelve years it took her to finish the film, she produced another 10 films as her day job, and raised two children.

Since completion in 2013 the film has toured extensively. It opened at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington DC, then premiered in NYC at the Museum of the Moving Image, and screened at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. The festival premiere was at Frameline in 2014, however the film was originally created for broadcast on PBS on Memorial Day weekend, 2013.

“When they put the notice about the film on the PBS website with an image of Romi Dias, half in a man’s Civil War uniform, half in a Victorian Dress, we got about 4000 shares in a few hours,” says Agui Carter. “With almost no marketing budget, within the first month, we had gotten forty-two million media impressions. I think it shows how hungry audiences are for fresh and diverse stories.” A partnership with the National Park Service brought the film to thirty historic sites throughout the country, from the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls to Shiloh National Park and the San Antonio missions.

Agui Carter is determined to create more diversity in media. “US demographics are rapidly shifting to be a minority-majority nation and Latinos are already the majority in US schools. Every 30 seconds, two non-Latinos retire and one Latino turns 18. Those children will make up a huge portion of our nation’s future workforce and citizenry. They will play a major role in American politics and economics.”

“Our media not only reflects, it also shapes, our national vision of identity.” This is where Agui Carter believes her skills can be most effective. “I can best contribute as a filmmaker, and I am naturally drawn to stories from my community. I can bring fresh and personal insight to these stories from my experience as a Latin American immigrant who has grown up in this country.”

Agui Carter works nationally on advocacy issues, working with colleagues at conferences and social events such as the National Association of Latino Independent Producer’s Annual Summit and the Black Filmmaker’s Foundation yearly weekend. She also created a residency for Diverse Women screenwriters and Directors called the NALIP Artist Retreat Center. Supported by HBO and Fox as well as foundations, they now have 22 graduates who are Native American, African American, Asian and Latina, and are an important support group for one another.

She also finds support within the region she calls home. “I love the purity and deep intellectual grounding of Boston’s documentary filmmaking community, that has supported me and among whom I have many dear colleagues, especially from my WGBH days and as a member of the Filmmaker’s Collaborative. Most of my colleagues are making films not to get rich or famous but because we deeply believe in the need for these stories and ideas to circulate out in the world and to help engender national conversations. “

“I am particularly fortunate to have begun teaching as a full time visiting professor at Emerson with colleagues I deeply admire,” says Agui Carter. “I was attracted to Emerson partly because of a recently pledged deep commitment to addressing issues of diversity and inclusion in their own ranks. I am proud to work alongside such colleagues as Cristina Kotz-Cornejo the first Latina tenured full professor of film production in the US, and the powerhouse Executive Producer of the Academy Award winning Danish Girl, Linda Reisman, at Emerson College, among many others.


Rebel screens as part of the Bright Lights Series at Emerson on Tuesday March 22nd at 7pm at the Paramount Theater.

For more information about Rebel, visit www.rebeldocumentary.com.