Breaking Boundaries
5:30 PM, Friday
The Mtn Craft Film Festival is proud to present “Breaking Boundaries",” our first ever panel moderated by festival emcee Alex Runyon, boasting a lineup of women with diverse film industry knowledge from documentary-making, education, distribution and much, much more. Get to know our panelists and their pedigrees below, and feel free to join in on the conversation.
Elaine McMillion Sheldon is an Academy Award-nominated, and Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker. Sheldon is the director of two Netflix Original Documentaries - HEROIN(E) and RECOVERY BOYS- that explore America's opioid crisis. She has been named a Creative Capital Awardee, Guggenheim Fellow, a USA Fellow by United States Artists, and one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film,” by Filmmaker Magazine. Her latest film, KING COAL, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. McMillion Sheldon was raised in West Virginia and lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Clara co-founded the creative studio, Coat of Arms in 2010 and serves as its director, producer, and writer. Coat of Arms works with Fortune 100 and 500 brands and is a Webby, Emmy, Cannes Lion-awarded studio. She wrote, directed, and produced her first feature documentary, Born in a Ballroom, in 2019. Her second feature documentary, O Pioneer, received a Cinequest Film Festival Audience Award, the Rome International Film Festival Jury Award, and the Appalachian Studies Association 2024 Jack Spadaro Documentary Award. She wrote and directed the multi-award-winning animated series entitled Lullaby Theories. Her work has played at over 50 film festivals world-wide, including Cannes, Doc Edge, DOC NYC, SXSW, and Tribeca. Clara received the West Virginia Beacon Award in 2020 for her community and filmmaking work. She serves as the chair of the WV Community Development Hub and on the executive board of the Helvetia Restoration and Development Organization.
Tijah Bumgarner is a filmmaker, scholar, and professor. She teaches narrative and documentary filmmaking at Marshall University. Since writing and directing her first feature film, Meadow Bridge, in 2017, she has co-directed and starred in the experimental short “Becoming Annette” (2020); co-created the web series Quarantine Life (2020); served as the 1st Assistant Director for Occupational Hazard (2021) directed by Ursula Ellis; co-wrote and directed the pilot episode of “Her Hope Haven” (2021); co-directed the short documentary “Patchwork” (2022); co-produced/directed/cinematographer on the feature documentary Picture Proof (2022) and served as a cinematographer for Small Town Universe (2024) directed by Katie Dellamaggiore.
When Jillian Carney Howell was seven years old, Santa Claus brought her a Barbie video camera and her love of filmmaking was sparked. After graduating from UNCW's Film Program, the Putnam County, West Virginia native relocated to Los Angeles in 2017 to begin working for the Walt Disney Company, where she has been a part of the production team for 'Frozen 2,' 'Raya and the Last Dragon,' 'Strange World,' 'Wish,' and several theme park attractions and traditional hand drawn shorts. As a filmmaker, her passion lies deeply in sharing Appalachian stories through an empathetic, optimistic, and collaborative lens, most recently through documentary-work. Her short documentary 'ZANE,' on her childhood best friend has won some local awards and played in New York and Florida. She is currently in production for what (she thinks?!) will be her first feature film, a documentary on the small town of Thurmond, WV where the population is 4. Since 2020, she has been running the social media project 'Shine On, WV,' to demystify West Virginians working in the arts and entertainment fields and uplift previously uncelebrated voices. She is excitedly looking to rebuild and expand that project in 2025.