Shana Feste’s ‘Heartland’ Puts Nashville’s Dark Side on Trial

By Elena Vasquez

Jessica Chastain stars as a fallen Nashville singer in “Heartland,” now streaming on Netflix. Shana Feste directed the mystery drama with Carter Faith as the singer’s missing niece.

The film also changed the director’s method. Six films into her career, Feste said, “Heartland” let her share control with her cast and crew for the first time. She has worked behind the camera for nearly two decades.

Why Feste keeps writing about difficult women?

Feste moves between genres without losing her subject. “I’m making a comedy, I’m making a horror film, I’m making a genre thriller,” she told IndieWire.

Across “Country Strong” (2010), “Run Sweetheart Run” and “Heartland,” her films return to women who defy expectations. “I’ve always been drawn to women who don’t behave correctly,” she said, adding that they grieve, mother and love “incorrectly.”

Her new film follows Misty Jones, a country superstar who left the industry after her reputation in Nashville became too heavy to carry. The 51-year-old director and mother of three wanted “some women who get shit done.” Misty returns to the spotlight when her niece, Charlie Heart, goes missing, and investigates.

Feste placed that contradiction at the center of her work. “We have this long-established cinematic tradition of celebrating damaged men,” she said. “But when women behave similarly, they could be labeled as hysterical or dramatic or that word, unlikable. I want to prove that wrong.”

Takeaway: Feste treats female ambition as a subject, not a flaw.

What changed during “Heartland”?

Feste started writing the film about four years ago. She had returned to country music after her father died about eight years earlier, and to the songs he played on their road trips. “I realized, oh, I’m really missing my father,” she said.

She reunited with producers Jenno Topping and Randall Poster, who backed her 2010 drama “Country Strong.” Poster served as music supervisor on both films. Feste credited them with sustaining her through difficult periods. “Knowing that they believe in me has always been such a huge lift,” she said.

The larger shift involved vulnerability. Feste named Topping, Poster, production designer Naomi Shohan and her production team as the reason she felt free to admit uncertainty.

“What was really valuable with this experience is that I felt completely comfortable saying, ‘I don’t know,’ and I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that way,” she said.

Takeaway: Collaboration replaced her earlier need to have every answer.

Why Nashville?

Feste built Misty from film noir. She has long favored Humphrey Bogart types and asked what such roles would look like given to women. The answer became a Nashville story with its own “dark underbelly,” she said.

The setting also carried immediate context. Feste said Diddy had just been arrested while the film was in production, and she named Epstein and Weinstein to underline that such scandals “are always going to be in the world.” A disgraced star confronting the machinery of Nashville turned current events into material.

Feste also argued for the genre’s value. “Country music is like the apex of storytelling,” she said. Her highest insult, delivered by Misty, is to tell another artist, “You don’t deserve country music.”

Takeaway: Feste uses scandal-heavy Nashville to test what country music can carry.

How did the cast reshape the film?

Feste cast Chastain for her voice, her audience in the South and her support for other women. The director also wanted actors to sing their own songs. “Whenever I’m making any kind of movie with music, I want the actors to be able to sing their own material,” she said.

On set, Chastain quietly protected the director’s authority. Feste recalled the actor asking for quiet during a noisy exchange: “Shana, sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”

Feste now welcomes Chastain’s objections to her plan. “To be able to relinquish control and admit when my idea wasn’t the best idea,” she said, was “actually going to elevate the scene.”

Carter Faith arrived with experience that matched the part. Feste and Poster were mapping five musical artists in the story and testing real singers as models. Faith, who moved to Nashville the day she graduated from high school, auditioned for Charlie Heart.

Feste asked what the actress shared with the character. “Well, we both have boy names,” Faith said. Her background included red beans and rice, couch-surfing and calling venues on Lower Broadway for a 10:00 AM Monday audition. She wrote the lyrics to the closing song, which Feste called “dialogue that I could never write.”

John Hawkes wrote other songs, Poster commissioned more, and Feste also conceived titles such as “Texas Land” before they existed. Jennifer Nettles handled the staged performances.

Feste said she lacked the skill to direct movement on a stage and instructed Nettles to address the audience as she did at the Opry. The country superstar did “so much heavy lifting,” Feste said.

Takeaway: Live singing and actor-led revisions gave the film its realism.

What comes next?

Feste is developing the next chapter of “Dirty Diana,” a story she began during lockdown. She also plans a television series about a Southern family and a “dream project” about Texas bank robbers.

“I really want to continue working in this space,” Feste said. “I want to continue telling stories about messy, complicated, vulnerable Southern women. I think that’s my bread and butter.”

The next test is whether those Southern women can hold a story beyond one feature film.