JOHNSON CITY — A pair of East Tennessee State University graduate film students, Patrick Cooley and Jake Higgs, have created and produced a new documentary exploring Breathitt County, Kentucky, after significant flooding occurred in summer 2022.
The film’s accolades are impressive.
“When the Water Goes Down” has been accepted to Tennessee Film Nights; the Southern Studies Conference at Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama; and the Story? - International Student Documentary Festival in Cork City, Ireland. The documentary was written about and published in Appalachian Places.
“With the news vans packed up and onto the next natural disaster, what are the people of Breathitt County left with when the water goes down?” reads the documentary’s logline.
The documentary explores climate change from scientific and biblical perspectives and the sense of being forgotten through emotional testimonies from survivors, as well as government action and inaction. Cooley and Higgs spoke with residents, county officials, students and state representatives.
“‘When the Water Goes Down’ was borne of a simple request from journalist Skylar Baker-Jordan: Help Eastern Kentucky not to be forgotten,” said Cooley. “This piece shares aesthetic and thematic sensibilities with such documentary features as ‘Hale County This Morning, This Evening,’ ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and ‘The Laramie Project.’”
Cooley and Higgs are joined by Baker-Jordan and Carleigh Minor in producing the documentary. All four crew members are well-versed in Appalachian culture, pursuing degrees in the Appalachian region. Cooley and Higgs are both students in the ETSU Media and Communication Department Graduate Certificate in Film Production Program. Both will graduate this spring. Cooley will graduate with a master’s degree in Appalachian studies with a concentration in culture and heritage and Higgs with a master’s degree in brand and media strategy.
“Initially, it was a great opportunity to do some on-location work that functioned as both experiential learning for my Appalachian studies degree and a final project for my ‘Documentary Research and Production’ class,” said Cooley. “However, once we got there and started interacting directly with the people, it took on a weight and urgency that I never could have anticipated.”
Cooley added that it is important to highlight these forgotten figures because “no one knows this reality better than the people on the front lines … such as those in Breathitt County.” Central Appalachia, he said, is unique in the ongoing climate crisis, making it a prime relocation destination, yet also predicted to see an increase and worsening of flooding events like the one that hit eastern Kentucky.