FEEL IT.STREAM
Elaine McMillion Sheldon

Elaine McMillion Sheldon

Directing

Biography

Elaine McMillion Sheldon is an Academy Award-nominated, Peabody-winning, and two-time Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker from Logan County, West Virginia. Her films explore life in Appalachia through personal and political lenses, covering topics such as coal’s cultural legacy, the opioid crisis, rural deindustrialization, incarceration, and environmental justice. Her latest feature documentary, KING COAL, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and was named a New York Times Critics’ Pick and one of the year’s best documentaries by Esquire and Marie Claire. The film screened at over 40 international festivals, had a 50-city theatrical run, and aired nationally on PBS’ POV in 2024. Sheldon directed two Netflix Original Documentaries, HEROIN(E) and RECOVERY BOYS, both focused on addiction and recovery in West Virginia. HEROIN(E) was nominated for a 2018 Academy Award and won a News & Documentary Emmy. Her other notable works include TUTWILER (PBS Frontline & The Marshall Project), COAL’S DEADLY DUST (Frontline & NPR), and the interactive project HOLLOW, which won a Peabody Award. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, Creative Capital Awardee, USA Fellow, and was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2024. Her work has been supported by Field of Vision, The New York Times Op-Docs, TEDWomen, and others. She has appeared on The Daily Show, Meet the Press, and Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. Sheldon earned her B.S. in journalism from West Virginia University and her M.F.A. from Emerson College. She lives in West Virginia with her husband and collaborator Curren Sheldon, with whom she co-runs Grounded Theory, a creative studio rooted in the Appalachian Mountains.

Known For

My Love: Six Stories of True Love
4.5

Inspired by the acclaimed Korean documentary My Love, Don't Cross That River, the poignant series MY LOVE documents a year in the lives of six elderly couples from around the world. Globe-trotting through Brazil, India, Japan, Korea, the U.S., and Spain, the six-part docuseries gets to the heart of long-lasting love.

My Love: Six Stories of True Love

2021
King Coal
7.5

The 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

2023
Heroin(e)
6.9

This documentary follows three women — a fire chief, a judge, and a street missionary — as they battle West Virginia's devastating opioid epidemic.

Heroin(e)

2017
Recovery Boys
6.5

In the heart of America's opioid epidemic, four men try to reinvent their lives and mend their broken relationships after years of drug abuse.

Recovery Boys

2018
No image
N/A

Coal miners are dying from the resurgence of an epidemic that could have been prevented. FRONTLINE and NPR’s joint investigation revealed the biggest disease clusters ever documented, and how the industry and the government failed to protect miners.

Coal's Deadly Dust

2019
11/8/16
6.4

U.S. citizens in more than 25 states are followed as they set out on the morning of the presidential election, throughout the course of the day, until the polls close in the evening and the results are revealed.

11/8/16

2017
Phantom Cowboys
6.8

Part time capsule, part folk song, Phantom Cowboys follows three teenage boys as they approach adulthood in vastly different parts of the United States. Moving fluidly between the deserts of California, the valleys of West Virginia, and the sugarcane fields of Florida, the film explores the lives of these young men during two formative periods - transitioning forward and backward in time over a span of eight years.

Phantom Cowboys

2018
Tutwiler
N/A

In this unique portrait of motherhood, women who give birth while incarcerated at one of America's most notorious prisons struggle to stay connected with their children on the outside. The mothers turn to a group of doulas for support through pregnancy, labor and separation from their newborns; and they help each other cope with loss and guilt. This rare, intimate look behind the walls of a women's prison raises questions about how our nation is handling the growing crisis of incarcerated mothers-and the children who must start their lives without them.

Tutwiler

2019
Beat Down
5.0

A down-on-his-luck schemer from a West Virginia boxing family comes home to borrow money from his mother, a two-time world champion, and winds up fighting in a rowdy amateur boxing competition.

Beat Down

2024
No image
N/A

An Irish-born American working at various points as a dressmaker and schoolteacher, Jones pivoted her focus to union and community organizing and activism after experiencing two major, personal tragedies: the death of her husband and four children from yellow fever in 1867 Memphis, and the destruction of her dress shop in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The impassioned figure would come to be known as “the most dangerous woman in America” while working to secure rights for mine workers and ban child labor.

Mother Jones

No image
N/A

Follows a group of recovering addicts working at Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co. in Hindman, Kentucky.

Troublesome Creek

2023
West Virginia, Still Home
N/A

McDowell County, situated in the coalfields of West Virginia, has experienced a great boom-and-bust since 1950. But despite the economic decline and population loss, many still call it home and feel a great sense of purpose among the mountains. Residents speak about their connection to this place and the meaning of "home."

West Virginia, Still Home

2013
TIMBERLINE
N/A

For decades, the Navy base known as Sugar Grove Station provided jobs and a sense of stability for the residents of Sugar Grove, West Virginia. Now, it’s being auctioned off to the highest bidder. As their mainstay fades away, members of the community consider the "Upper Base” of the former Navy post, where an NSA listening post remains operational—and sealed off from the rest of the town.

TIMBERLINE

2017
Hollow
N/A

An immersive project that examines the future of rural America through the residents of West Virginia's McDowell County.

Hollow

No image
N/A

Through the eyes of an aging generation, The Elders examines what it really means to live, by coming of age.

The Elders

2013
The Ascent
N/A

On the first day of Christmas break, Jared escapes his troubled home and wanders into the snowy woods, where he discovers the wreckage of a small plane. Returning to parents consumed by addiction, he witnesses their fragile world collapsing under the weight of need and neglect. As the snow deepens and the forest closes in, Jared’s escape into imagination blurs with the stark reality of survival.

The Ascent