Elaine McMillion Sheldon

Elaine McMillion Sheldon is an award-winning documentary maker and media artist who works across mediums—non-linear and linear—to tell non-fiction stories for audiences on multiple platforms. Sheldon received a 2013 Peabody award, a 2014 World Press Photo Multimedia award, and a 2014 News & Documentary Emmy nomination for her interactive documentary “Hollow,” which examines the future of rural America through the eyes and voices of Appalachians. In 2010, she co-directed and co-produced “The Lower 9,” a feature-length documentary about residents who returned to The Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, five years after Hurricane Katrina. She is currently in-production on “Rescue Breath (Working Title),” feature-length documentary about individuals rediscovering their lives after opioid addiction. She is the co-creator of “She Does,” a bi-weekly audio documentary series that documents creative women’s journeys. “She Does” won a 2016 Communicator Award of Excellence from The Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts. In 2016, she was named one of Chicken & Egg’s “Breakthrough Filmmakers,” and in 2013 was named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine and a Future of Storytelling Fellow. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Mashable, The Atlantic, LA Times, Huffington Post, and The Bitter Southerner. Sheldon is a founding member of All Y’all Southern Documentary Collective.

Hollow
An interactive documentary that merges cinematic techniques with web-based storytelling to encourage a dialogue about the issues that small-town America faces. The project examines the lives of 30 individuals living in McDowell County, W.Va., an area that is representative of many boom-and-bust areas across the country, through video portraits, data visualizations, photography, soundscapes, community-generated content and grassroots mapping.

She Does
A documentary audio series that features creative minds working in media. Each episode centers around an intimate conversation yet digs deeper into each woman’s background, philosophy and process through artful audio documentaries soundtracked by music made by women. She Does received a 2016 Communicator Award of Excellence from The Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts.

Rescue Breath: Working Title
After his son holds up a bank while high on heroin, Kevin Blankenship, a successful doctor who reinvented the urgent care system, is forced out of retirement to battle the opioid epidemic that has swept through his home state of West Virginia. Directed by native West Virginian, Elaine McMillion Sheldon, “Rescue Breath” documents the leaders and recovering addicts who are fighting the opioid epidemic that has taken thousands of lives across the nation. With unrestricted access to a story as it unfolds, the feature-length documentary follows the stories of Kevin Blankenship, his staff and the addicts that seek help over six month experimental, farming-based rehab, from the very first resident to the graduation of a half-dozen residents.