Holly Hey – Producer & Director

Holly Hey is an independent filmmaker living in Ohio, teaching at the University of Toledo, and making documentary and experimental films. Her work focuses on social justice issues like queer identity, HIV history, clean water access, and criminal justice reform. Her films and videos have screened across the country and internationally, as well. Holly is a NETA (The National Educational Telecommunications Association) producer and her festival highlights include The Ann Arbor Film Festival, The Athens International Film Festival, The Big Muddy Film Festival, and the Queens World Film Festival. Her scholarly research focuses on work-based learning, subjective experience, and the language of the image. Holly holds a BFA in photography from Ohio University and a MFA in film from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sue Carter- Producer

Susan Carter graduated from the University of Toledo in 1969 with a degree in fine art but her concern for justice and equality drove her back to UT in 1989 for a Master’s in Counseling and a License in Social Work so she could offer LGBT affirming therapy in our community. When her best friend, Harold, was diagnosed with HIV in 1990, her life and work were permanently redirected she become a volunteer support group facilitator for the NOVA Program and David’s House. She also volunteered at the first HIV test site in Toledo then  worked at UTMC for 30 retiring from the Ryan White Program where she still volunteers. Today she is on the board of Holiday with Heart Gayla raising money for LGBTQ+ organizations, active in Lake Erie Advocates, a group acting to halt the pollution of Lake Erie and Ohioans to Stop Executions. As for her fine art degree, Sue’s banners and picket signs, are frequently seen at rallies for peace, justice, human rights and the environment.

Ally Day – Producer

Ally Day is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Chair of Disability Studies at the University of Toledo. Her book The Political Economy of Stigma: HIV, Memoir and Crip Positionalities (OSU 2021) addresses the complicated interactions between those living with HIV and AIDS Service providers, as well as the neoliberal production and exploitation of narrative within the Medical Industrial Complex. The Political Economy of Stigma was the National Women’s Studies Association 2022 Piepmeier Prize.  In addition to co-producing a feature length film about an HIV hospice in Toledo OH, hosting and producing the Telling It Our Way podcast featuring stories of folks with intellectual or developmental disabilities, she is also working on second book project about the intersection of disability and birth where she analyzes several sites of pregnancy and disability, from Zika to doula trainings, home birth movements to infertility industries; this project is tentatively titled Grappling with Gestational Ableism: Disability, Pregnancy and the Future of Care.  

Lee Fearnside – Producer

Lee Fearnside is an independent artist, editor and curator, and is co-producer of HIV in the Rust Belt. Her photographic work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in New England, the Midwest, including the Toledo Museum of Art, the Reece Museum and the New York Hall of Science. She published Death Never Dies: Mourning 2020 Through the Lives and Deaths of Public Figures in 2021, and the book won the 2022 Popular Culture gold medal from the Independent Publishers Book Awards, a silver medal from the Midwest Book Awards and was a 2021 Distinguished Favorite of the Independent Press Award. She has curated group exhibitions around themes of sustainability, diversity, food systems and art from Ohio prisons, and is co-founder of the EVAC Project. Fearnside earned a BA from Smith College, a M.F.A in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a M.S. in Arts Administration from Drexel University. She is the Executive Director of Girls on the Run of Northwest Ohio

Richard W. Meeker – Producer

Richard W. Meeker is the Manager of Community Engagement and Development at The University of Toledo Medical Center (UTMC) – Care Clinic. For more than thirty-two years, Richard has fought to dispel the fear, stigma and misinformation about HIV/AIDS through his work not only at UTMC but also David’s House Compassion, Inc. and Planned Parenthood of Northwest Ohio. Richard’s efforts have raised awareness and significant funds in support of programs and services that assist individuals in northwest Ohio who are living with HIV and/or AIDS. Known for being creative and organized, Richard is skillful at gathering community members together in support of special events that bring attention to the issues and needs of the underserved.

Richard is an alumnus of Mercy College of Ohio is an Ohio Department of Health Certified HIV Counselor and served as Community Co-chair of the Toledo-Lucas County Regional Advisory Planning Group. Richard is a current Board member of the Northwest Ohio Dental Center and ASSETS Toledo. A former Board Member of The Toledo-Lucas County Health Department FQHC, COMPASS Recovery and Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Northwestern Ohio. Richard is still actively involved with his “Little” though the match has been closed by Big Brothers Big Sisters because his little graduated from high school in 2020. Richard enjoys gardening, caring for animals and entertaining in his home

Lee Heritage – Composer

Composer Lee Heritage has written numerous works for wind ensemble, orchestra, chamber groups, film, and theatre.  Heritage’s recent works for the concert stage include Some Other Place for two flutes and piano, which was premiered in 2021 by the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.  His Fun and Games for string orchestra February Twilight and Castle Builder, were commissioned and premiered by The University of Toledo Wind Ensemble in the spring of 2018. To the West Wind (2014), written for and premiered by the Toledo Symphony Woodwind Quintet, and All the Fine Things for flute duo and piano, which was premiered at the British Flute Society – London Flute Festival in 2014.  Other compositions include In A Dream of Fabled Lands for flute choir, Lullabye for Bear for flute and piano (also available for trombone and piano), Two Poems for flute and guitar, All Kinds of Pairs for flute and guitar, Fling for guitar quartet, A Suffusion of Blue and Once More for saxophone quartet.  Heritage’s chamber compositions are available through Cimarron Music Press and Doberman Yppan Publishers.  His works for larger ensembles are available through Imagine Music Publishing.

Heritage has written music for stage and media, including the 2023 Holly Hey film Sister Eileen and Her Boyz, an HIV in the Rust Belt Story.  In an earlier collaboration, Heritage wrote music for Holly Hey’s work film Reentry Realities, Hope Deferred.  In 2014 Heritage wrote the score for the planetarium film Santa’s Secret Star, produced by the University of Toledo Full Dome Studio.  He has collaborated with the Glacity Theater Collective, writing music for the premiere performance of The Exhibition (2012) and Glacity’s 2009 performance of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal.  Heritage composed music for Masks, a multimedia dance docudrama by Ed Lingan that was premiered in Toledo in 2015 and performed at the 2016 Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference in Toledo, Ohio.  He has also written music for productions at The University of Toledo Department of Theatre and Film, including A Man for All Seasons, Oedipus the King, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and In the Next Room.   

Dr. Heritage is Professor of Music at The University of Toledo where he has taught music composition and theory since 1992. During the period 1996 to 2000, he served as Founding Director of the music composition program at the Brevard Music Center in Brevard, North Carolina.  Heritage has also served as Chair of the Department of Music and Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UT.  He holds music composition degrees from the Shenandoah College and Conservatory of Music, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Ali Moussa – Cinematographer

Ali Moussa is an aspiring filmmaker with a focus on cinematography and editing. His work has ranged between narrative, commercial, educational, and most notably, documentary-style filmmaking. He has served as a cinematographer and camera operator on the PSB short documentary, Reentry Realities – Hope Deferred, as well as cinematographer and assistant video editor on the ongoing documentary series, HIV in the Rust Belt.