Tales of Summer - Losing Ground

Kathleen Collins, 1982, 86 minutes
with Seret Scott, Bill Gunn, Duane Jones

About the film:

Kathleen Collins's second film tells the story of two remarkable people, married and hurtling toward a crossroads in their lives: Sara Rogers, a Black professor of philosophy, is embarking on an intellectual quest just as her painter husband, Victor, sets off on an exploration of joy. Victor decides to rent a country house away from the city, but the couple’s summer idyll becomes complicated by his involvement with a younger model. One of the very first fictional features by an African-American woman - restored in 2015 by the filmmaker's daughter, Nina Collins - LOSING GROUND remains a stunning and powerful work of art for being a funny, brilliant, and personal member of indie cinema canon. 

In the New York Times, Filmmaker Ira Sachs calls “Losing Ground” “a revelation.” The characters are “so human and fascinating and extremely modern,” he says, adding that he loves a movie that “exists in some very complete version of the local.” 

Co-Presented with the Bronx Independent Film Center