Losing Ground

Efie Gallery and Bootleg Griot present a monthly film programme in the Rekord Gallery tracing the intertwined histories of African and Arab liberation cinema. Through a carefully considered selection of films, the series reflects on how sound and image have shaped political consciousness, cultural memory, and diasporic imagination across continents.

Losing Ground (1982 · Directed by Kathleen Collins)

About the film

This film is a quietly radical work that redefined what Black life could look like on screen. At its centre is Sara, a philosophy professor searching for “ecstasy” beyond the limits of intellect, her journey unfolding through art, desire, and self-discovery as her marriage begins to fracture.

Made in the early 1980s, at a time when Black characters were often confined to narrow narratives, Collins offered something rare: a portrait of Black intellectual life, intimacy, and interiority. As one of the first feature films directed by an African American woman, Losing Ground challenged both industry exclusion and representational boundaries, though it remained largely unseen during her lifetime.

Now restored and widely celebrated, the film endures as a landmark of independent cinema, an exploration of what it means not only to think, but to feel, to experience, and to become.