One of the first feature-length motion pictures directed by a Black American woman and a National Film Registry inductee, Losing Ground tells the story of a Black female philosophy professor and her abstract painter husband drifting apart as they experience separate creative evolutions. The film won first prize at the Figueroa International Film Festival in Portugal in 1982 but did not receive an official release until it was restored in 2015, long after director Kathleen Collins passed away from breast cancer in 1988. Losing Ground paved the way for Julie Dash to become the first African American woman to have a wide theatrical release of a feature film with Daughters of the Dust (1991).
Dash will join Dr. Jacqueline Stewart, Director and President of the Academy Museum, and Dr. Ariel Stevenson, Assistant Professor at USC, in a conversation following the screening.
Losing Ground @ 40 is a two-day, multi-site program that brings together luminary Black women filmmakers and scholars to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the path breaking film. To learn more about the event weekend, go to https://tinyurl.com/losinggroundat40