To celebrate International Women’s Day on Wednesday, March 8th, the Irish Film Institute will screen pioneering African-American director Kathleen Collins’s Losing Ground, with an introduction by Dr Zelia Asava at 18.30.
International Women’s Day was established to recognise women’s achievements and acknowledge the challenges they continue to face in the quest for gender equality. To coincide with the events of the day, the IFI will screen Losing Ground, notable for being one of the first feature films to be directed by an African-American woman, Kathleen Collins.
After being heavily involved in the Civil Rights movement during the 1960s, Collins went on to write several plays and screenplays. Her best-known work is the 1982 film, Losing Ground. Largely forgotten for the last 35 years, the film resurfaced in 2015, finally getting a release and the critical acclaim it so richly deserved – from noted critics such as Charles Burnett, Ashley Clark, Richard Brody, and A.O. Scott amongst others.
Taking place over the course of a summer, Losing Ground follows philosophy lecturer Sara (Seret Scott) and her artist husband Victor (Bill Gunn) who decides to rent a house in upstate New York whereupon strains in the marriage soon begin to materialise.
Tickets for the screening of Losing Ground are available now at www.ifi.ie or by calling the IFI Box Office on 01-6793477.