All of my work in Flint begins with Claressa “T-Rex” Shields. Claressa is Flint embodied - tough, charismatic, unflinching. At age 11 she started boxing and now she is the greatest female boxer in the world.

Drea Cooper and I directed a documentary about Claressa, produced by Sue Jaye Johnson. “T-Rex” premiered at SXSW in March 2015 and broadcast on PBS in August 2016. The film documents her journey from Flint to the London Olympics and back.

Claressa brought me to Flint. Nearly all of the episodes in this project are in some way connected to her. She was the reason I wanted to look deeper at this complicated, magnetic city.

If you want to understand the origins of Flint is a place, this is where to start.