A still from Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s (2021 Grantee) Creative Capital Project, King Coal—an official selection of the NEXT section at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Gabby and Lanie are two young girls who live in the coalfields of Appalachia. Film still from Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s King Coal.
Film still from Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s King Coal.
Film still from Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s King Coal.
Film still by Elaine McMillion Sheldon.
Film still by Elaine McMillion Sheldon (2021 Grantee), whose Creative Capital Project King Coal will make its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
Film still from Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s Recovery Boys.
Elaine McMillion Sheldon's film, Tutwiler.
King Coal
Elaine McMillion Sheldon is an Appalachian-based filmmaker who explores challenges in American society and its effects on people.
Artist BioThe cultural roots of coal continue to permeate the rituals of daily life in Appalachia even as its economic power wanes. The journey of a coal miner’s daughter exploring the region’s dreams and myths, untangling the pain and beauty, as her community sits on the brink of massive change.
King Coal premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2023.
From the Journal
Catch King Coal playing at DCTV Firehouse Cinema in New York City from August 11—August 17, 2023.
Events
King Coal
August 11—August 17, 2023
Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film
87 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10013
Elaine McMillion Sheldon: King Coal, World Premiere at Sundance
January 23 – 27, 2023
Sundance Film Festival, Multiple Venues
Park City, Salt Lake City, Utah
Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Knoxville, TN
Elaine McMillion Sheldon is an Appalachian-based filmmaker who explores challenges in American society and its effects on people. She is the director of Recovery Boys and the Academy Award-nominated, Emmy-winning Heroin(e), which both explore America’s opioid crisis. Her film Tutwiler, an intimate look at motherhood inside one of America’s most notorious women’s prisons, aired on PBS America Reframed. Sheldon’s interactive documentary Hollow brought to life a post-industrial community online and received a Peabody Award and 3rd Prize in the World Press Photo Awards. She was named a 2021 Livingston Award Finalist, 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, 2018 USA Fellow by United States Artists, one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine, and received the Breakthrough Filmmaker Award from Chicken & Egg Pictures.
From the Journal
Events
- King Coal August 11—August 17, 2023
- Elaine McMillion Sheldon: King Coal, World Premiere at Sundance January 23 – 27, 2023