A Maine film showing the raw edges of homelessness in Bangor came to Aroostook County for the first time Thursday.
The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s psychology club hosted a screening of “InhuMAINE” on campus, advancing filmmaker Rogan O’Donnell’s mission to put human faces on the homelessness crisis.
O’Donnell spent 19 months filming people in Bangor’s famed “tent city,” which municipal leaders dispersed last year, distilling the work into a 78-minute documentary that premiered at the Maine International Film Festival on June 6. His goal was simple and yet incredibly complex: paint an unflinching portrait of people experiencing homelessness that would spark compassion for the human condition.
“We are all somebody. Let’s get back to being human,” O’Donnell said before the event. “If we don’t, this crisis will be with us for a long time.”
The most surprising thing he learned during the process was that the stigma toward people who are unhoused is real, he said.
The film is not about homelessness, but rather about a failing system, he said, calling the Bangor situation a warning sign for the rest of the country.
O’Donnell, a Bangor native, created the feature-length documentary while studying toward his clinical mental health counseling degree at Husson University. It was the first time he’d ever ventured into filmmaking, and the entire project felt spiritually guided, he said.
A volunteer community advocate, walks through Tent City in Bangor on March 12, 2025. The former homeless encampment features in a new documentary about the city’s homelessness crisis. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
A small group collaborated to bring the idea to fruition, including O’Donnell’s wife and son, producer and narrator Ryan Kapp of 7th Avenue Productions and students from Husson’s New England School of Communications.
The film world premiered at the 2025 Maine International Film Festival and was featured at the New England Recovery Film Festival and the Maine Mental Health Counselors Association Conference, according to the InhuMAINE website.
The University of Maine at Presque Isle Psychology Club, one of the campus’ newest organizations, hosted the screening.
“This is in Maine. It directly concerns us,” club President Alexei Olmstead said before the film started. “Its mission is to spread awareness and inspire local people to be empathetic.”
As winter cold threatens those who live outside, it’s an important time to acquaint people with such a raw look at homelessness, a challenge that is prevalent in northern Maine as well, club Vice President Lexy Whitmore said.
The Presque Isle showing also happens around the time of the annual Point in Time Count, an in-person record of the nation’s homeless people on one night each January. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development oversees the count.
Maine’s count will take place on Monday, Jan. 26, in each county, according to Maine Homeless Planning.
Last year’s Point in Time event recorded 2,413 homeless in the state, MaineHousing reported. That’s the lowest in four years, with numbers peaking in 2022 at 4,411 people.
University of Maine at Presque Isle Psychology Club President Alexei Olmstead (left) and Vice President Lexy Whitmore (right) talk with Maine filmmaker Rogan O’Donnell on campus Thursday. Credit: Paula Brewer / The County
A group of about 30 gathered in the Campus Center to view the documentary.
The film features interviews with people experiencing life at the Bangor encampment, along with city officials, Bangor police and representatives of many service organizations.
Filtered among shots of the cluttered encampment are serene landscape views: sunrise at Cadillac Mountain, softly falling snow along the Penobscot, historic downtown Bangor, autumn leaves and an eagle soaring over water.
The film also shows screenshots of several Bangor Daily News articles about homelessness, housing and domestic violence in Maine.
O’Donnell doesn’t expect quick solutions for a problem that he said is becoming a black hole. But in order to start finding answers, people need to see each other as human beings.
“When housing disappears and treatments have huge waitlists, programs are being shut down and funding is stopping, the people don’t vanish,” he said. “What we’re seeing is survival. If we’re all humans, we should be doing a better job.”
