America ReFramed, AfroPop
Commuted
Released after 23 years in prison for nonviolent drug offenses, a mother reconnects with her family and reflects on the legacy of the War on Drugs.
Natchez
Natchez captures a clash between history and memory through a small Mississippi town reliant on antebellum tourism to survive, exploring who has the right to share America’s story.
- Length
- 90 minutes
- Funding Initiative
- Open Call
Producer/Director
Suzannah Herbert
Suzannah Herbert directed and produced the Emmy Award-nominated Wrestle. She edited PBS’ Great Performances: Tony Bennett & Diana Krall, three episodes in The Root’s series, and A Woman on the Outside, which premiered at SXSW. Previously, she was an assistant editor on Netflix's Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.
- Other ITVS Films
- Wrestle
Producer
Darcy McKinnon
Darcy McKinnon produces documentaries; her most recent release is Suzannah Herbert’s Natchez, premiering at Tribeca 2025, scheduled for broadcast on Independent Lens in 2026. Other credits include A King Like Me, Roleplay, Commuted, Algiers, America, Under G-d, Look at Me: XXXTENTACION, and The Neutral Ground.
- Other ITVS Films
- Commuted
- The First Plantation
- The Neutral Ground
We fund untold stories for public media.
Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS.
The Film
After generations of showcasing its antebellum homes, Natchez, Mississippi, is reckoning with a romanticized past, an uncertain future, and its responsibility towards the descendants of enslaved people. A portrait of a tourist town at a crossroads, Natchez follows an array of historic homeowners, activists, and tour guides as they craft the stories that define their place, and revise their own pasts and identities in the process.
The film features a group of Natchezians who perform the public history of their small city. Rev, a preacher, former county commissioner, and full-time tour guide, takes tourists on a tour of Natchez’s sites of enslavement, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow. Tracy, whose role, playing ‘southern belle’ for Garden Club mansion tours, is complicated by her recent divorce. David’s antebellum home tours focus on family stories of silver place settings and porcelain treasures, while Debbie, the first African American member of the Pilgrimage Garden Club, owns and gives tours at her former slave dwelling turned bed and breakfast.
Antebellum home tourism saved Natchez in the 1930s, but questions remain about whether the past can bring the city into the future. As the Natchezians grapple with how to tell more authentic histories, the impacts of a romanticized past ripple into present lives. What begins as a community portrait of a quaint Southern town capitalizing on antebellum nostalgia gradually reveals the fault lines and racial tensions that persist.
