Veteran actor/musician Cher is to star in a feature film about the Flint water crisis, the toxic-contamination crisis that has affected the Michigan city since 2014 and which has led to multiple charges of misconduct against local officials.
According to Deadline, Cher has been cast as a woman whose family has been badly affected by the crisis, in a storyline developed from Time magazine’s 2016 cover story, The Poisoning of an American City by Josh Sanburn. Driving Miss Daisy’s Bruce Beresford has been hired to direct, and the project is being produced for the Lifetime cable network.
Having won a best actress Oscar in 1988 for Moonstruck, Cher’s acting work has been sporadic in recent decades: her last onscreen role of any substance was as a clubowner in 2010’s Burlesque, following a decade-long gap after 1999’s Tea With Mussolini. In contrast to these comedic roles, she featured in the activist drama Silkwood in 1983, for which she received a best supporting actress nomination.
Cher donated thousands of bottles of mineral water to Flint residents via the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan in January 2016. The crisis is also to be the subject of a documentary produced by Crash director Paul Haggis.
