Oscar-Nominated ‘Heroin(e)’ Filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon Sets ‘Mother Jones’ As First Narrative Feature; Lisa Saltzman To Produce Pic On Famed Labor Organizer
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: 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.
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