EXCLUSIVE: Elaine McMillion Sheldon, the filmmaker known thus far for her Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning work in the documentary space, is making her first move into narrative as the director of a film on Marry Harris Jones — the hallowed labor figure known to history as Mother Jones.
Jerry Bowles and David O’Malley penned the script for the project, with Lisa Saltzman set to produce.
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.
Sheldon’s film on Jones will follow the fierce warrior for the working class during one of her final fights in the American coalfields. CAA Media Finance will arrange financing for the film and rep worldwide distribution rights.
“Even though she passed away in 1930, Mother Jones’ story still resonates today,” Sheldon told Deadline. “It’s a historical story of resilience, gender, and influence; and a contemporary story about how public personalities are formed and maintained, as well as the role of performance and spectacle in politics.”
“Mother Jones was relentless in her commitment to improve the lives of working people and was committed to and a fierce fighter for social justice. She was compelled to create a society that was more equitable and just,” added Saltzman. “Her legacy has a profound impact on activists and organizations around the world. An advocate well into her 80s, Jones was a courageous and fierce warrior whose story continues to be deeply relevant today.”
Sheldon is an Appalachian-based filmmaker best known for directing and producing Netflix’s documentary short Heroin(e), exploring America’s opioid crisis, which landed an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Short, as well as a News & Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Short Documentary in 2018. She further mined the subject with the feature-length Netflix doc Recovery Boys and most recently directed and produced King Coal. That acclaimed documentary, exploring America’s coal regions as they find their new identity beyond the industry that has dominated life for more than 100 years, world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
Saltzman is currently developing a biopic of fitness guru Jack Lalanne, based on Steven Kaminsky’s biography Anything Is Possible: The Jack LaLanne Story, with Gunnar Peterson aboard as an executive producer. She’s also developing films based on two notable artist biographies: Debby Campbell and Mark Bego’s Burning Bridges: Life with My Father Glen Campbell and Matthew Hild’s Arrow Through the Heart: The Biography of Andy Gibb. The former charts highs and lows in the life of country music star Glen Campbell, while the latter looks at singer-songwriter and Bee Gees brother Andy Gibb’s struggle with fame, cocaine addiction and death at just 30 years old.
Sheldon is represented by CAA.
