I'm so excited to announce that my latest film, "Heroin(e)" will premiere this weekend at the 2017 Telluride Film Festival. "Heroin(e)" chronicles the stories of three women working to break the cycle of drug abuse and overdose in Huntington, West Virginia - a city with an overdose rate 10 times the national average.
"Heroin(e)" is a Netflix Original Short Documentary and was supported by The Center for Investigative Reporting's Glassbreaker Films Initiative.
-Elaine McMillion Sheldon
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Once a bustling industrial town, Huntington, West Virginia has become the epicenter of America’s modern opioid epidemic, with an overdose rate 10 times the national average. This flood of heroin now threatens this Appalachian city with a cycle of generational addiction, lawlessness, and poverty. But within this distressed landscape, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon (Hollow) shows a different side of the fight against drugs -- one of hope. Sheldon highlights three women working to change the town’s narrative and break the devastating cycle of drug abuse one person at a time. Fire Chief Jan Rader spends the majority of her days reviving those who have overdosed; Judge Patricia Keller presides over drug court, handing down empathy along with orders; and Necia Freeman of Brown Bag Ministry feeds meals to the women selling their bodies for drugs. As America’s opioid crisis threatens to tear communities apart, the Netflix original short documentary Heroin(e) shows how the chain of compassion holds one town together.
CREDITS:
Directed by Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Produced by Kerrin Sheldon, Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Executive Produced by Jason Spingarn-Koff Zana Lawrence Lisa Nishimura (Netflix)
Executive Produced by Amanda Pike Christa Scharfenberg (CIR)
Cinematography by Kerrin Sheldon
Edited by Kristen Nutile
Music by Daniel Hart
View and share our trailer #heroinenetflix