TEENAGE WASTELAND Documentary to Stream on Netflix
The film revisits a 1991 student investigation into pollution led by teacher Fred Isseks.
TEENAGE WASTELAND, a documentary directed and written by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, is set to begin streaming on Netflix. The film centers on a group of teenage students in 1991 upstate New York who, guided by English teacher Fred Isseks, set out to make a student film and instead uncovered a pollution scandal threatening their town's groundwater. Drawing on hundreds of hours of archival video, the 110-minute documentary follows the students as they confront local officials and a criminal organization, and revisits the events three decades later with Isseks and his former students.
TEENAGE WASTELAND will stream on Netflix beginning September 4, 2026.
1991. Upstate New York. A group of teenage misfits, inspired by a renegade English teacher, embark on a student film project and uncover a vast conspiracy that is poisoning the ground beneath their feet. Banding together to confront the indifferent adults, corrupt politicians, and a violent criminal organization threatening their small town, they produce an investigative documentary that causes shockwaves in their community.
TEENAGE WASTELAND is a coming-of-age story based on exclusive access to hundreds of hours of candid, humorous, and nostalgic video outtakes, and the cooperation of Fred Isseks and his intrepid students as they reckon—thirty years later—with a defining event in their lives and a remarkable story of civic courage.
Key Contributors
Fred Isseks, Rachel Raimist, Jeff Dutemple, David Birmingham, Mike Regan
TEENAGE WASTELAND is produced by Teddy Leifer, Florrie Priest, Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine, and Danny Breen, with Zhang Xin, Joey Marra, William Horberg, Jeff Skoll, Courtney Sexton, and Dan O'Meara serving as executive producers.
