Cher is relying on her firsthand knowledge to craft a film of great merit about the Flint, Michigan water crisis.
The 70-year-old singer and actress is working on a Lifetime Television project about the pollution disaster, which left thousands of people exposed to lead-contaminated water thanks to local authorities’ decision in 2014 to switch the city’s water supply from one river to another.
“I’ve been involved with Flint since pretty much the beginning, so I think this is going to have merit,” she tells The Washington Post of the upcoming TV movie.
Cher reveals her small screen picture Flint is modelled after Julia Roberts’ 2000 biographical drama Erin Brockovich, a film based on the real-life environmental activist who successfully fought a corporation for contaminating groundwater, an act that made local residents in the rural area severely ill.
“Those kinds of things are tied together — when people who have no voice and have no one that’s interested in who they are or what they think or what their lives mean, they (the rich and powerful decision makers) don’t care,” Cher explains. “It’s like (all about) the bottom line: How much will it cost to keep doing this thing that is poisoning people? Is it worth it, and will we get away with it? All the things that you don’t expect of people that are supposed to take care of you and watch over you. You don’t expect them to have no compassion and no empathy or humanity.”
The Believe hitmaker has been an active campaigner for Flint residents affected by the crisis and even sent more than 180,000 bottles of water to the area in January 2016, but she previously noted to Billboard some of her charitable efforts were thwarted by officials due to red tape.
