The film “King Coal” is screening at three southwest Virginia theaters over the next week. The movie is a documentary about the strong cultural power coal mining has in Appalachia, with scenes of coal miners teaching children about their work, and beauty pageant contestants competing to be “Miss King Coal”. There’s a dreamlike, almost magical tone to it.
Director Elaine Sheldon grew up in West Virginia, in a family with four generations of coal miners. “My brother still works in the coal industry, all of my cousins do,” Sheldon said.
“I really didn’t want the film to be only about the doom and gloom, and the decline, but what hope, what resilience, what sort of seeds and images do I want to give my son for the future?”
Sheldon said this film would not be what it was if she hadn’t had her son while making it. “This film really put the pressure on me to ask the question, ‘ok, if you’re gonna make this one film about coal, which has touched every part of your life growing up, if you want to say something, you’re gonna have to say it in a way that you’re handing it to your kid.”
Two young girls from West Virginia, Lanie Marsh and Gabrielle Wilson, play central characters in the film. “We didn’t want to hire actors. We wanted kids with real connections to coal communities, but could still be in this space with us, where they were playing and dancing and learning about coal in this more magical way,” Sheldon said.
“When you see these kids in coal country you really ask the question of, ‘what is their future?’ If this culture is one that has been fading over time what will be the one that the kids of today want for the future?”
“King Coal” is screening in Floyd County September 16, Emory & Henry College on Sept 20, and in Blacksburg Sept. 21.
