About 30 minutes into director Elaine Sheldon’s new film “King Coal,” the sides of the frame suddenly begin to creep inward.
It happens on a wide shot of two young girls, sitting on a bench, crafting friendship bracelets. A small West Virginia town unfolds behind them. But as the black bars encroach on the corners of that bench, the film cuts and different children appear.
One little girl bounces on her grandmother’s knee in a wicker lawn chair. Another girl stands in her mother’s flower garden, looking warily at the camera. Another strums a guitar on her front porch. A young boy sits under a tree with his mom and dad. A Black family, evidently a mother and father with their 10 smiling children, pose against a whitewashed fence. A group of four white children, their neighbors, do the same.
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https://westvirginiawatch.com/2023/09/04/west-virginia-state-archives-film-collection-gets-big-screen-treatment-in-king-coal/?es_id=5082ade459