Flint, MI has been on national radar for a while now, but the city's problems aren't over, nor did they arise from nothing. Netflix's latest documentary series, Flint Town, explores the background and trajectory of this city how poverty, police relations, and a notorious water crisis took a heavy toll.
Flint is a city of 100,000 people with roughly 0.1 percent of that staffing the police force. In the trailer, multiple residents express mistrust for the law or hopelessness at what the city – once a promising automotive hub ranked high in safety and potential – has become.
The eight-part Flint Town looks at Flint's mounting struggles through the lens of its understaffed law enforcement and follows them for a year of the debilitating water crisis. In the directors' own words, "Flint really never stops."
"Flint feels so unique and forgotten," director Zackary Canepari said in a press release. "It’s a charismatic, weird place that has been on the fringes for so long that the abnormal has become normal. And there was a strong tendency, even during the height of the water crisis, for outsiders to see Flint in one-dimension. But it’s not one-dimensional. "
Events like a millage vote and the 2016 presidential election lent themselves naturally to the year-in-the-life narrative, as did approaching the city through an ensemble of police officers.
"Despite all the troubles facing Flint today, there’s a relentless and unshakable spirit that most people in Flint still manage to hold onto," said his co-director Drea Cooper. "It’s magnetic, and that’s what keeps us coming back."
Flint Town premieres on Netflix March 2.
