Sheldon Wins Top Cinematography Prize for King Coal

March 3, 2024

Curren Sheldon, whose narrative feature, Country Brawlers, won the Jury Prize at FILM FEST KNOX 2023, was given the Documentary Award by the American Society of Cinematographers for his work on King Coal. Directed by Knoxville-based filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon, 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.”

Winner Curren Sheldon is based in Knoxville, Tenn., and shared a 2018 Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Short Subject with Elaine McMillion Sheldon for Heroin(e), which also won a News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Documentary. With six colleagues, he shared a 2020 Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Short Format Children’s Program for Sesame Street in Communities: Meet Salia, which Sheldon directed and shot. He produced and shot the documentary feature Recovery Boys and co-created, directed and shot the web series Quarantine Life. He was nominated for a 2023 Camerimage Golden Frog for King Coal and this was his first ASC Award nomination.

Read more and see an interview with Sheldon at The American Society of Cinematographers