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- 2023
- 1 h 20 m
- 2023
- 1 h 20 m
Summary 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.
Directed By: Elaine McMillion Sheldon
- 2023
- 1 h 20 m
- 2023
- 1 h 20 m
King Coal
80
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
tbd
Summary 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.
Directed By: Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 7 Critic Reviews
80
100% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 7 Critic Reviews
80
100% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Sheldon is a coal miner’s daughter, and her brother is a fourth-generation miner. Coal is intrinsic to her family. This is the story of her people, a celebration of their traditions, a condemnation of an economic system that failed them, and an elegy for a waning way of life.
In this melancholic, thoughtfully attuned cinematic essay, no mountain is more important than the people who are still confined to the claustrophobic tunnels of the past.
It offers no easy answers while spinning an evocative web of ideas, treating the mineral and all that follows as a religion complete with sacrifices.
Filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon, a native of the state, has done a breathtakingly expressive job of capturing the strangeness, the beauty and the devastation of her homeland in the poetic, entrancing documentary King Coal.
Filmed in Central Appalachia—including the director's home state of West Virginia—King Coal moves beyond shallow impressions of the region with a real love for her neighbors and prodding questions about what it means to identify with an industry that has harmed and exploited generations of families.
King Coal goes deeper into the cultural roots of the opioid crisis, looking at a region both devastated and nurtured by “the King” and asking what a future without it might look like.
King Coal might not be an invigorating, fire-lighting work like Harlan County, USA, but it is still a startling piece of anthropology: An expression of a place and a people, and their local god, ruler and captor.
User Reviews
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Production Company
Cottage M,
Drexler Films,
Fishbowl Films,
Requisite Media
Release Date Aug 11, 2023
Duration 1 h 20 m
Genres
Awards
Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
RiverRun International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Seattle International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
