Rebirth Magazine Black Book & Film Festival
The East Baton Rouge Parish Library (EBRPL) Main Library at Goodwood
Baton Rouge
Feb. 6-7
Walking into the library over the weekend, patrons might have seen food trucks out front and signs for the Rebirth Magazine Black Book & Film Festival. It was spread in different places within the library from the front rooms to back conference rooms and even outside.
The festival was clearly a labor of love that brought together creatives of all stripes from filmmakers to authors to activist poets. It was more than just books and films; the lineup included games like bingo and trivia, giveaways, bilingual storytime and some local vendors.
“In the last few years — maybe a decade or so — Baton Rouge has had an influx of creatives that are doing film,” said organizer and founder of the magazine, Simone Higginbotham. “I wanted a platform to create a space where these people could come together, and the public could also come and celebrate them.”
She wanted to bring generations together, so she intentionally curated the events to appeal to everyone from young children to Baby Boomers. The festival featured 16 authors and four films.
“A lot of our Gen Zers and millennials don’t know our history,” she said. “A lot of the films that were submitted and shown over this weekend depicted people that are part of the fabric of the African American film and literary worlds.”
The feature film of the festival was “The Dichotomy of Hattie McDaniel,” a biopic about the first Black Oscar winner in history. McDaniel won for best supporting actress for her role as Mammy in “Gone with the Wind.” The film, written and directed by Vincent Victoria, tells the story about her Oscar win and depicts the discrimination she faced both in the film industry through segregation and type-casting and the biting criticism from her own community. The NAACP denounced her roles, including as Mammy, as racist and accused her of perpetuating stereotypes.
The film does a good job of depicting the dilemma that trailblazers face when change hasn’t come yet. McDaniel was an actress in segregated times. There were no other roles for her to take. She couldn’t just wait decades for society to catch up for her. How do people deal with the unfairness in the times they find themselves in? How does one endure being misunderstood? These are the questions trailblazers still have to ask themselves. Presently, this conversation is being litigated with the likes of Peter Dinklage and Sofía Vergara who have both also been accused of perpetuating stereotypes with the roles they’ve taken depicting Little People and Latina women respectively.
Progress doesn’t just happen. It’s messy, and people have to live through it. In “The Dichotomy of Hattie McDaniel,” McDaniel defends her choice with a line she said frequently in real life: “I’d rather play a maid than be one.”
Despite its honorable aims, the copious amounts of AI for backgrounds and establishing shots in this film were extremely distracting. The background flips from black and white to vintage looking full color to aggressively modern, and regardless of the style they seem flat like the actors aren’t actually in the room, just standing in front of a picture of a room. The stylistic inconsistencies are jarring and pull people out of the world. The exterior shots of the Oscars feature a row of identical cars that have no drivers, and the people walking beside them move in an uncanny fashion.
For films without huge budgets, AI may make it possible to get shots that were otherwise impossible, and it’s totally plausible that the amount of water used to generate these scenes does not outweigh the resources it would have taken to actually build these sets. But its use here takes away from the valuable message of the film which aims to highlight the difficulty the trailblazers face and tell McDaniel’s story.
Within the context of the festival, the film was scheduled to be shown just on Friday. Due to popular demand, it was shown a second time on Saturday evening. However, the schedule of events was published some time the week of the event, and wasn’t adhered to. Even with the schedule, it’s hard to discern what exactly the events would entail and to plan for it. Two day-long events contain a wealth of knowledge, and I wish that the schedule was more clear so that attending the event would have gone more smoothly.
Still, the event is in its first year, and like the trailblazers, growing pains are expected. Hopefully, the event grows from the inaugural festival and comes back stronger next year.
