Natchez

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.