Past is forever present in Memphis filmmaker’s award-winning ‘Natchez’
Central High grad Suzannah Herbert won the Best Documentary award at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival for “Natchez” and it was named one of 2025’s five best docs by the National Board of Review. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images file)
For generations of white Southerners, the post-Civil War “Lost Cause” view of regional history — embodied by the enormous success of “Gone With the Wind” — held sway. Cultures and industries sprang up around it.
The public process of contesting and correcting those narratives has played out across the South for decades now.
But maybe in some places that view of history has had a deeper grip, cast a stronger spell. Maybe some Southern places are a little more Southern than others.
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Chris Herrington
Chris Herrington has covered the Memphis Grizzlies, in one way or another, since the franchise’s second season in Memphis, while also writing about music, movies, food and civic life. As far as he knows, he’s the only member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association who is also a member of a film critics group and has also voted in national music critic polls for Rolling Stone and the Village Voice (RIP). He now splits his time between Minneapolis-St. Paul, where his wife works, and Memphis.
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