November 23, 2025 / Gene Siskel Film Center / Chicago, IL
“Nothing I do leads to ecstasy” laments Sara Rogers (Seret Scott), the protagonist of Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground (1982). Revered by her students, Sara is a philosophy professor whose brilliance beguiles all who encounter her. All, that is, except for her husband Victor (Bill Gunn): a painter whose primary fidelity is to his own whims. After his work is acquired by a major institution, he proposes that they celebrate by renting a house in the Catskills. Across the course of a summer, “you see [Sara and Victor] go through a trauma in their marriage and you see them try and resolve it. It's really not any more complicated than that,” notes Collins during a lecture at Howard University in 1984. Certainly a portrait of a couple working to resolve a rupture, Losing Ground is also a coming-of-age film of sorts in that, once Upstate, Sara allows herself to be roused and seduced by what lies beyond the safety she finds within her studies.
Characterized by her fierce intellect, Sara derives a sense of comfort in the sense of control, order, and sanctuary she finds in the towering brilliance of her own mind, which is symbolically represented by her profession. On the other hand, Victor’s painting practice allows him to embody a seemingly ceaseless availability to a state of transcendence and revelation; a state that Sara too longs to be consumed by, hence her decision to spend the summer conducting research on ecstatic experiences. While Sara’s quest begins within the bounds of her comfort zone – a library – she soon begins to turn her pursuit outwards and beyond her books, which brings her into contact with Duke (Duane Jones), an enigmatic figure who invites her to uncoil, firmly shake the hand of risk, and turn her back on her allegiance to propriety. As she opens a window into her own wildness, the infectious and intimate momentum of Losing Ground is propelled by Sara’s eventual realization that knowing about ecstasy is a mere prosthesis for the feeling of it.
Featuring: Shiloh Tumo Washington, Myla Danielle, Camille Bacon, Kara Jackson, Ryuan Johnson, Paige Taul, AE Stevenson, Briana Clearly
“Nothing I do leads to ecstasy” laments Sara Rogers (Seret Scott), the protagonist of Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground (1982). Revered by her students, Sara is a philosophy professor whose brilliance beguiles all who encounter her. All, that is, except for her husband Victor (Bill Gunn): a painter whose primary fidelity is to his own whims. After his work is acquired by a major institution, he proposes that they celebrate by renting a house in the Catskills. Across the course of a summer, “you see [Sara and Victor] go through a trauma in their marriage and you see them try and resolve it. It's really not any more complicated than that,” notes Collins during a lecture at Howard University in 1984. Certainly a portrait of a couple working to resolve a rupture, Losing Ground is also a coming-of-age film of sorts in that, once Upstate, Sara allows herself to be roused and seduced by what lies beyond the safety she finds within her studies.
Characterized by her fierce intellect, Sara derives a sense of comfort in the sense of control, order, and sanctuary she finds in the towering brilliance of her own mind, which is symbolically represented by her profession. On the other hand, Victor’s painting practice allows him to embody a seemingly ceaseless availability to a state of transcendence and revelation; a state that Sara too longs to be consumed by, hence her decision to spend the summer conducting research on ecstatic experiences. While Sara’s quest begins within the bounds of her comfort zone – a library – she soon begins to turn her pursuit outwards and beyond her books, which brings her into contact with Duke (Duane Jones), an enigmatic figure who invites her to uncoil, firmly shake the hand of risk, and turn her back on her allegiance to propriety. As she opens a window into her own wildness, the infectious and intimate momentum of Losing Ground is propelled by Sara’s eventual realization that knowing about ecstasy is a mere prosthesis for the feeling of it.
Featuring: Shiloh Tumo Washington, Myla Danielle, Camille Bacon, Kara Jackson, Ryuan Johnson, Paige Taul, AE Stevenson, Briana Clearly