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NATCHEZ—Director Suzannah Herbert’s film “Natchez” was awarded best documentary at the prestigious 2025 Tribeca Film Festival.

Filmed in 2023 in Natchez, the documentary is billed as a story about the American South’s “unreconciled history.”

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Herbert’s film was the unanimous pick of judges.

The Tribeca Jury released this statement: “Who tells America’s story? In a country where the rewriting and abject erasure of African American history threatens a truthful understanding of who we are, the jury applauds this film’s focus on a southern town, once one of America’s largest slave markets, whose economic mainstay is now historic tours.

“The film’s incisive, razor-sharp craft, its deft navigation of myriad participants without ever losing clarity, its timeliness, its humor, its confrontation of naked racism, yet its refusal to flatten its Mississippian storytellers—however flawed—into easy villains, for being artful, honest, and deeply compassionate, the jury—unanimously and unequivocally—awards a film that brings us hope not for an America that can agree, but one that might understand each other.”

Herbert’s publicist, Susan Norget, said Herbert is working to arrange a community screening for July or August.

Tracy McCartney of Natchez met Herbert in 2023 while receiving guests at the historic Choctaw Hall. She is in the documentary.

McCartney has seen the film and said if she had to say one phrase about it, that phrase would be that it’s “thought-provoking.”

“The film points out things we can obviously do better. It shed light on a lot of the beauty of Natchez, but some will think it’s controversial, too. As I said, it’s thought-provoking. I think the film shows us for the humanity that we are,” McCartney said.