BATON ROUGE — A Morgan City filmmaker is in the process of making a documentary about the first woman executed by the state of Louisiana.

Nearly 100 years ago, a married woman named Ada Leouef was accused of having an affair with the family physician, Dr. Tom Dreher. Soon, Leouef and Dreher were sentenced to death. 

Matison Leblanc is telling Lebouef's story in her new project "Ada and the Doc."

"Everybody on that trial knew Ada and thought she was a home wrecker, and so they only deliberated for 15 minutes, it was all men, came back in and sentenced her and the doc to death by hanging," Leblanc said.

When Leblanc learned about it three years ago, she was so intrigued that she decided to make a movie.

Between 2021 and 2023, Leblanc wrote a script, then she and her team shot and produced a 15-minute short version for her senior project in film school.

Now, she is using it as a demo as she works to impress and grab the interest of an investor who can provide the funding needed to make a full feature. 

Earlier this year, Leblanc and some of her crew screened her film at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France. The short got a lot of positive feedback. 

Leblanc says exposure matters.

"This is hard, I'm gonna sit here and say it's peaches and cream all the time...it's not," she said.

She hopes her journey inspires up-and-coming filmmakers in Louisiana, especially women. 

“Everybody has something to say, and that is actually the first rule I learned when I went to film school. I entered film school as a painter; I didn't even know I wanted to do film until I took Film 100. It just clicked,  I was like this is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” she said.

She has written and directed five short films so far. She says the industry is starving for original content.

“The number one rule I learned was write what you know because that authentic perspective is what makes your work good,” Leblanc said.

Right now, productions filmed in Louisiana get a 40% tax incentive, which she says is a win for filmmakers here.

“It's just gonna take the right person to believe in it, it's the chicken or the egg situation, can’t get actors without money, and can’t get money without actors either, will take investors or a company or an actor to really believe in this thing to make it happen.”

She has already written the entire script, waiting for everything else to line up.

If Leblanc gets her way, you will indeed be able to watch the full feature of Ada and the Doc in theatres or streaming.  

“You have to want it more than anything…and I do," she says.

You can check out a screening of the film next month on August 21st through the 24th during the Baton Rouge Underground Film Festival at the Manship Theatre.