After generations of showcasing its antebellum homes and hoop-skirted docents, Natchez, Mississippi, is now reckoning with a romanticized past, an uncertain future and the debt it owes to the descendants of slavery. A cinematic portrait of a tourist town at a crossroads, NATCHEZ follows an array of historic homeowners, activists and tour guides as they tell their versions of the past, and clash over who gets to tell America’s story.
Status
Development
About the Filmmakers
Director/Producer
Suzannah Herbert
Suzannah Herbert is a documentary director and editor from Memphis whose directing work focuses on the American South. Herbert directed and produced the twice Emmy-nominated film WRESTLE. Named one of the top 5 documentaries of 2019 by the National Board of Review, lauded as “superb” by the Los Angeles Times, and hailed as a New York Times Critic’s Pick, WRESTLE was released theatrically by Oscilloscope and broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens. As an editor, she has collaborated on various Bob Dylan, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga projects, music videos and award-winning films like 2022’s A WOMAN ON THE OUTSIDE (SXSW 2022, PBS’s America Reframed). Her second feature film, NATCHEZ, premiering at the 2025 Tribeca Festival, was supported by ITVS, Catapult Film Fund, the Ford Foundation, Rooftop Films Fund, CIFF Points North Fellowship, Logan Nonfiction Fellowship, Yaddo, True False Catapult Rough Cut Retreat and Film Independent.
Producer
Darcy McKinnon
Darcy McKinnon is a documentary filmmaker based in New Orleans whose work focuses on the American South and the Caribbean. Recently released projects include A KING LIKE ME and ROLEPLAY (SXSW, 2024), COMMUTED (PBS, 2024), ALGIERS, AMERICA (Hulu, 2023), UNDER G-D (Sundance 2023), LOOK AT ME! XXXTENTACION (SXSW, Hulu, 2022) and THE NEUTRAL GROUND (Tribeca, POV, 2021). Current projects in production include Jason Fitzroy Jeffers’s THE FIRST PLANTATION, Abe Felix’s TURNAROUND, CJ Hunt’s UNLEARNED, Nicole Craine’s KINFOLK and Zac Manuel’s THE INSTRUMENT. McKinnon’s work has been seen on World Channel, AfroPop, POV, Reel South, LPB and Hulu and has screened at Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, CPH:DOX and more. She is an alum of the Impact Partners Producing Fellowship and the Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellowship and is a recipient of American Documentary’s Creative Visionary Award.