Losing Ground

Writer-director Kathleen Collins opens with her heroine, New York college philosophy professor Sara (Seret Scott) at work, one male student (Zachary Minor) showing particular interest, in the recently restored feature Losing Ground, 1982, also starring Bill Gunn and Duane Jones.

The song title translates to “Taste Of Conga” and the band, Los Patines, are “The Skates,” making an interesting choice as director Kathleen Collins follows Victor (Bill Gunn), artist husband of the college professor heroine, on the first visit to the town where he wants to take a summer house, in Losing Ground, 1982.

Squeezing in a research session at her New York college library, philosophy professor Sara (Seret Scott) has an evidently chance encounter with handsome and well-read Duane Jones (we’ll later learn he’s named Duke), then, late for a date, remembers to call her husband, in writer-director Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground, 1982.

Nearing the end of the term, New York college philosophy professor Sara (Seret Scott) confers with a student (Maureen Grady), then gets schmoozed by a smitten student film-maker (Gary Bolling), in writer-director Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground, 1982.

Finding her artist husband away from their upstate NY summer studio, professor Sara (Seret Scott) fends off a student film-maker, then locates Victor (Bill Gunn) who has, it turns out, been painting a Puerto Rican model (Maritza Rivera), in director Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground, 1982.