Flint Town Documentary Provides On-The-Ground Look At A City In Crisis

Welcome to Flint, Michigan — Netflix will show you around town.

The streaming service has served up the first trailer for its upcoming docuseries on life, crime and injustice in the heart of lower Michigan, and you can watch the depressing and distressing first look at the series for yourself now.

For a period of two years, filmmakers Zackary Canepari, Jessica Dimmock and Drea Cooper embedded themselves with the Flint police department, following the city's cops as they navigated their side of the society in crisis. 

From the trailer, it appears the docuseries will examine both the police and civilian perspectives, while also touching on the horrific and continuing state of Flint's drinking water, a shameful disaster of governance and greed which continues to endanger the community to this day. 

While the filmmakers embedded themselves with the police to get footage, they aren't necessarily presenting a documentary from the police department's side. Rather, the harrowing series looks like it will examine the distrust, tension, and righteous fury that denizens of Flint feel toward their government and supposed protectors — a shaky state of affairs that seemingly threatens to boil over at any moment.

Previously, Canepari and Cooper worked on the critically-praised documentary feature T-Rex in 2015, following Flint-based boxer Claressa Shields on her way from Michigan to a gold medal performance at the 2012 Olympics in London.

Dimmock, a director and cinematographer, previously directed the documentary feature The Pearl, and worked on the 2015 short Giving Birth in America. Flint Town is her first full series as co-director.

Flint Town has been ordered for a run of eight episodes, all of which are set to launch on Netflix on March 2.