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Trailer Watch: Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s King Coal
The first trailer drops today for 25 New Faces of Film alum Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s King Coal, the filmmaker’s meditative hybrid doc on the impact of the coal industry (and the substance itself) on Central Appalachia. The film premiered at Sundance this year in the NEXT section and will arrive in select theaters around the country for limited engagements beginning next month.
Per an official synopsis:
A lyrical tapestry of a place and people, King Coal meditates on the complex history and future of the coal industry, the communities it has shaped, and the myths it has created. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon reshapes the boundaries of documentary filmmaking in a spectacularly beautiful and deeply moving immersion into Central Appalachia where coal is not just a resource, but a way of life, imagining the ways a community can re-envision itself.
While deeply situated in the regions under the reign of King Coal, where McMillion Sheldon has lived and worked her entire life, the film transcends time and place, emphasizing the ways in which all are connected through an immersive mosaic of belonging, ritual, and imagination. Emerging from the long shadows of the coal mines, King Coal untangles the pain from the beauty, and illuminates the innately human capacity for change.
King Coal will screen at New York City’s DCTV Theater on August 11 and The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens on September 9.
In the interim, read our interviews out of Sundance with DP (and the filmmaker’s spouse) Curren Sheldon and editor Iva Radivojevic, who also appeared on our 25 New Faces of Film list in 2013 alongside McMillion Sheldon. You can also read McMillion Sheldon’s response to this year’s annual Sundance Question.
