Holly Hey, Professor of Film
Holly Hey is a do-it-yourself filmmaker who works across genres and disciplines. Her work has been generously supported by the LEF New England, Rhode Island Humanties, Ohio Humanties, The John Domrose Foundation for Human Rights, The Frank W Lunch & Roberta Jane Lynch Endowed Family Fund, The University of Toledo, and private donors. Her PBS documentary series HIV in the Rust Belt highlights stories about overlooked lives of HIV activists and survivors of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the Toledo, Ohio region. The series' first installment, Sister Eileen and Her Boyz, an HIV in the Rust Belt Story is distributed to PBS affiliates around the world by the National Educational Telecommunications Association. Her experimental films have been showcased in some the country’s top festivals including, The Ann Arbor Film Festival, The Athens International Film Festival, The Big Muddy Film Festival, The Queens World Film Festival, and the Denver International Film Festival. Currently, she is developing a short narrative film, Diva Cups and China, a comedy set in the rural Ohio flatlands where lesbian moms raise their son surrounded by industrial agriculture and MAGA enthusiasts. As a scholar, Holly’s work is centered on the language of the image, subjective experience, and work-based learning. She holds a BFA degree in photography from Ohio University and a MFA in film from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
At the University of Toledo, Professor Hey adopts filmmaker, scholar, philosopher Umbert Eco’s quotable quote, “A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection – not an invitation for hypnosis.” She teaches a broad range of courses on creative processes for cinema production, critical thinking skills for the filmmaker, and preparing the student filmmaker for the professional world. Students leave her courses with the power to create, to power to problem solve, and to the power to communicate through the language of the image.