Toledo, OH, July 18th, 2018 – The National Educational Telecommunications Association (“NETA”) has contracted with Professor Holly Hey, Head of the Film/Video program at the University of Toledo for exclusive public television distribution rights of Hey’s film “Crossing Water – Flint Michigan – 2017,” a documentary about the ongoing water crisis in Flint, MI. Hey worked with the non-profit service organization Crossing Water to highlight the continuing needs and challenges facing the residents of Flint and the social service volunteers who help them. The film will broadcast regionally for the first time on WNED Buffalo, NY on Saturday August 11 at 5 p.m. Katherine Larsen senior director of Radio/TV programming for WNED says Hey’s film is a, “great program on an ongoing issue. Clean water is vital to our communities, especially in the Great Lakes region.”

Holly Hey, Professor of Film – The University of Toledo

Flint, Michigan made national news in 2014 when the city’s emergency manager switched the source of the city’s water, plaguing residents with a host of immediate and toxic problems, including: deadly bacteria, outbreaks and deaths from Legionnaires’ disease, and the wide-spread presence of lead in the city’s drinking water. In the film, Hey highlights the work of Crossing Water, a nonprofit organization that brings together social workers and other volunteers to bring water, services, and access to resources to the hardest hit residents of Flint. Hey weaves together multiple stories of Crossing Water volunteers, staff, and Flint residents, creating a portrait of what it is like to live within an ongoing systemic disaster. Crossing Water Executive Director Michael Hood called the film “a sobering story of the Flint water crisis.” Hey believes that all Americans should care about Flint because it’s a crisis that is indicative of the future for many US communities. According to CNN, over 5,300 municipalities around the country are in violation of lead rules. Hey says, “eventually systems will fail in any community, systems essential to human life like water and power. We can’t ignore that we are all vulnerable to such collapse, wherever we live in America.”

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