Hollywood South: New Orleans in Film

Louisiana's journey to becoming "Hollywood South"

It began with a pioneering move in 1992, when the state became the first in the nation to offer tax incentives for film and television production. By 2002, business was booming with an expansion of these credits, then Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. With a lot of love from Hollywood and a lot of work by the local industry, we limped back to being a viable option for filming. Then in 2015, a lesser known disaster, Gov. Bobby Jindal, buckled to budgetary pressure and capped the tax incentive program, crippling years of growth and recovery. After 20 years of reviving and rebuilding an industry, resilience is in our blood. While streaming services create a greater opportunity for production- more opportunities for projects to be green-lit and casting a wider net for breakout talent both in front and behind the camera- many productions are moving to Canada to stay in budget. Tax breaks, once the fertile soil that made Louisiana grow into its industry name of "Hollywood South", help productions stay in budget and will drive the business back to New Orleans and the surrounding parishes. Once again, we wait out the storm.

Interested in seeing the houses used in Mayfair Witches, American Horror Story: Coven & the Curious Case of Benjamin Button? Check out the beautiful mansions of the Garden District on a tour with me!

A King Like Me, available on Netflix

Enjoy a NOLA-themed movie night

with some of the most famous shows & movies to film in/feature Louisiana/New Orleans. The best ones use the city as a main character, not just a setting, integral to the plot, the mood and the story- I put a star next to my favorites & wrote a little synopsis for some. Tell me your favorites that I forgot, in the comments:

• Sinners*: a stylistic vampire story that speaks on racism, oppression and appropriation, while raising culture and art as tools of rebellion and survival- its use of music to communicate this story is innovative in horror.

• American Horror Story: Coven: a fun season if you've skipped over it- especially cool to see the interior of the LaLaurie mansion and the Buckner Mansion on Jackson Ave.

• Mayfair Witches: Based on the Anne Rice books, this series follows a young doctor discovering the spooky secrets kept in her family and was filmed in majestic mansions in the Garden District and the Pontchartrain Hotel, home to Tennessee Williams' while he wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire”.

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

• The Originals

• Interview with the Vampire (TV show and film)*: I'm a fan of both, but I really enjoyed the TV show's depictions of the mortal life of Louis (as a black Creole trying to hold together his family's failing business), the atmosphere of 18th century New Orleans for the powerful & wealthy and the scenes of red light life in Storyville.
  

Interested in seeing the houses used in Mayfair Witches, American Horror Story: Coven & the Curious Case of Benjamin Button? Check out the beautiful mansions of the Garden District.

• Django Unchained*: Along with Hateful Eight, this is Quentin Tarantino's foray into the modern spaghetti western in his truly unique style. Evergreen Plantation is the setting for Candyland.

• Treme*: There was a time when I said this neighborhood name and tourists nodded with recognition, but that seems to happen less and less. What a shame. This HBO series by the folks behind The Wire cast a lot of unknown locals and brought family, musicians & culture to the forefront of survival in post-Katrina New Orleans.

• NCIS: New Orleans

• Your Honor

• Renfield

• A King Like Me*: A documentary on Netflix about the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club that dives into how this black men's club has shaped New Orleans and Mardi Gras. I got to see this premiere locally at the New Orleans Film Fest & it's an insightful, fly-on-the-wall doc about an often-misunderstood & under-appreciated aspect of New Orleans Carnival culture.

• Scream Queens

• Girls Trip

• Dallas Buyers Club

• 12 Years a Slave

• Killing Them Softly*: The setting of New Orleans is less the campy, "le bon temps roule" variety and more the bleak, industrial hopelessness that compliments the dilemma of the two thugs who unwisely rob a mob card game. The acting and cinematography save this neo-noir crime movie that goes a little heavy-handed on the "capitalism as master" message.

• Green Book

• A Streetcar Named Desire*: I mean, it's a CLASSIC. Tennessee Williams' life in New Orleans inspired the characters that makes Streetcar such a potent tale of the old & new South.

• Beasts of the Southern Wild*: a magical realism fairy tale set in a flooded bayou and told through the Peter Pan-like adventures of the 6 year old protagonist. The role landed Louisiana-native Quvenzhané Wallis in history as the youngest person ever nominated for an Oscar.

• Disney's Princess and the Frog

• Trouble the Water

• Deepwater Horizon: woefully undertold, this film focuses on the disaster at Deepwater Horizon and only slightly on the corruption that caused it. While it focuses on the actual event, the repercussions and cover up by BP in the months that followed the largest marine oil spill in history were the real story.

• Causeway: after a tour in Afghanistan, Jennifer Lawrence returns to New Orleans to learn to live with her PTSD

• Five Days at Memorial: great performances by Vera Farmiga and Cherry Jones, this mini-series tells the story of doctors and nurses left to care for patients at Memorial's ICU for 5 days without power during Hurricane Katrina. Their moral dilemma became national news & the show is based on a book by the same name.

• Blue Bayou: released in 2021, but sadly very pertinent right now, it follows the ICE detention of a Korean man, adopted and raised in Louisiana, fighting to stay with his family.

• When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts*: if you only can watch one Katrina doc, this Spike Lee epic tells the full story.

• The Pelican Brief & The Client: for the John Grisham fans like my dad

The New Orleans Film Festival is a great way to see Louisiana films by local, independent film makers.

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