General Admission: $16 | Belcourt Members: $13
Nashville: Hick Flick, U.S.A. examines the emergence of Nashville’s exploitation filmmaking scene in the 1960s and ’70s, a local response to the broader national shifts in independent cinema and filmmaking. While directors like Coppola, Scorsese and Altman were reshaping Hollywood, Nashville filmmakers were crafting their own “hick flicks”—low-budget productions rooted in Southern settings, rural spectacle, and moral panic. We’ll explore how these films found national audiences through drive-ins and neighborhood theaters, turning regional tropes into a distinct subgenre of American cinema, and learn about what set Nashville’s filmmaking apart during this era. The conversation extends into the 2000s, tracing the legacy of Hick Flicks through local cult phenomena like the Ernest P. Worrell franchise and the auteur works of Harmony Korine — and the ways it all intersects with the Belcourt’s own history.
Presented by T. Minton, Belcourt’s public historian and archivist
