Writer/director Vincent Victoria titled his feature film “The Dichotomy of Hattie McDaniel” to make a point about the woman who in 1940 became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award.
“I wanted to show both sides of Hattie McDaniel,” he said. “On one side you saw her on the screen as a mostly subservient character (Mammy in ‘Gone with the Wind’). You very seldom saw the breadth of her talent. She was also an activist. She was a wife. She was a glamorous hostess.”
Victoria’s film, which was funded in part by the city of Houston through its Houston Arts Alliance, is one of two opening-night screenings Thursday at the San Diego Black Film Festival 2025. The 23rd festival runs Thursday through Feb. 2 at AMC Theatres La Jolla 12.
More than 100 films will be screened during the festival, including Victoria’s “The Dichotomy of Hattie McDaniel,” which premiered last October in Houston, has been on the festival circuit ever since and it stars Wykesha King in the title role.
Victoria said he’s been “mesmerized” by McDaniel ever since he first saw “Gone with the Wind” and was compelled to write plays about her before penning this screenplay. One of those plays, titled “They Don’t Want to Hear Hattie Sing,” transported McDaniel to the 21st century so that she could witness, Victoria said, how Black actors are treated now.
Keep in mind, Victoria reminded, that after McDaniel won her Oscar, 23 years went by before another Black actor, Sidney Poitier, was honored by the Academy for “Lilies of the Field.” And no other Black female actor won an Oscar until Whoopi Goldberg did in 1991 (for “The Color Purple”). McDaniel had roles in several hundred films, many of them uncredited, prior to “Gone with the Wind,” her Oscar-winning performance in that film was celebrated as a breakthrough.
“She (McDaniel) fought a hard battle and was never really appreciated by either the film community or the Black community until much later on,” Victoria said.
In the Black community, he said, McDaniel was highly criticized by Walter F. White, who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAA) from 1929 to 1955.
“He had a vendetta against her,” Victoria said, “because she was not how the ‘new Negro’ should be on screen.
“You realize the struggle she had to endure to even get the roles that she did get,” Victoria said of his film’s reveals. “She had to bastardize the English language to get those roles. She did what she had to do.”
Victoria said that in his film he wanted to show McDaniel’s talent.
“She was more than just a stereotype. She was an actress who could play different roles if she was allowed to. What she had to deal with in her time was much harder than actresses have to endure now,” he said.
If Victoria was able to speak to Hattie McDaniel today (she ed away in 1952 at age 59), what exactly would he say to the woman whose performances and courage have inspired him?
“I would say to her ‘You were amazing, and thank you for the hard work that you did that paved the way for a person like me to want to write about it,’” he said.
Besides the film screenings, there will also be receptions on Thursday and Friday evening at 6 p.m., a filmmakers breakfast at 8 a.m. Saturday and an awards dinner and gala on Saturday evening.
This year’s festival features films from multiple genres including comedy, drama, documentaries, animation, LGBTQ, horror, religious, foreign and African diaspora, shorts and more.
The other opening-night film is Edward Morrison’s documentary short “Costume Royalty,” a look at three trailblazing Black women fashion designers who, like McDaniel, had to struggle for acceptance and success. They were Anne Lowe, a couture designer who created Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress, Andela Farmer, who designed the costumes for many television shows in the 1970s and ’80s, including “Good Times”; and Zelda Wynn Valdez, who created the original design for the Playboy Bunny costume and created many famous celebrities including Ella Fitzgerald and Eartha Kitt.
Among this year’s other festival offerings are the horror thriller “Troubleshooters,” documentaries on Caribbean musician Bankie Banx and the roots of West Coast hip hop music; the animated opera short “A Pocket Magic Flute”; the LGBTQ film shorts “As You Are” and “Purple Patrol”; the romantic drama “A Season For Love”; and the religion-themed feature “Obsidian Dolls (The Forbidden Wish)”.
The festival was established in 2002 by the nonprofit San Diego Black Film Center. The festival is held every years during the last week of January. It has become one of the largest Black film festivals in the country. Because of this festival’s size, and its scheduling early in the year, SDBFF has become a popular spot for festival scouts looking for films they’d like to add to their festival lineups.
San Diego Black Film Festival 2025
When: Thursday through Feb. 2
Where: AMC Theatres, La Jolla 12, 8657 Villa La Jolla Drive #129, La Jolla
Tickets: $10 and up; festival $300
Online: sdbff.com
