ST. MARY PARISH — Franklin’s Teche Theatre is set to bring history to life on the big screen with the screening of Ada and the Doc, a short film that revisits one of the most infamous murder trials in Louisiana history. Set in 1927, the film tells the story of Ada LeBoeuf, a housewife trapped in an abusive marriage, whose life became entangled in a case that gripped the state and led to her execution — making her the first woman put to death by the state of Louisiana in Franklin.
Typically period pieces are extremely expensive, because things don’t look like how they did in the 1920s anymore. Well, not in St. Mary Parish. A lot of that stuff is like little time capsules, and that’s kind of what allowed us to do what we did.
That attention to detail is what drove filmmaker Matison LeBlanc to bring Ada and the Doc to life — a story woven into the history of St. Mary Parish. LeBlanc first discovered the story one summer while working at the Morgan City Public Library. Her boss handed her a book about the trial, and she couldn’t put it down.
“He gave me his personal copy of the only book ever written about the trial. I was taking a feature screenwriting course, so I had to write a feature film anyway, and when this fell in my lap, I was like, this is perfect.”
LeBlanc shaped the screenplay into a short film.
“We did like an abridged retelling of the first act of the feature and turned it into a stand-alone short, so it’s like the events leading up to their arrest.”
The short has already gained recognition. Ada and the Doc was selected for the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival while LeBlanc was working as an intern there.
“I got to call my team and they’re all freaking out, and so me and my producers go to Cannes, and I got to go as a filmmaker and as an intern.”
With support from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and other local grants, the project has gained momentum. Partly financed already, LeBlanc is seeking additional investors to fund a full-length feature set to enter production in 2026.
Saturday September 20th, Franklin audiences will have the chance to see the short film just steps away from where the trial and execution actually took place.
“We are going to be screening this directly across the street where everything happened — where the trial happened, where they were held captive, and where they were ultimately executed. So hopefully they’re watching over us and thanking me for telling their story.”
