In Focus: Bill Gunn

In collaboration with Oak Cliff Cultural Center, "In Focus: Bill Gunn" is set to showcase three of the late filmmaker's most celebrated works: Personal Problems, Ganja & Hess, and Losing Ground. The series aims to introduce audiences to Gunn's unique vision and contributions to cinema, which have been largely overlooked in mainstream film history.  

"Personal Problems" is a groundbreaking experimental drama that explores the lives of a group of black middle-class New Yorkers in the 1980s. Shot on video and featuring a largely non-professional cast, the film is a raw and intimate portrait of everyday life, relationships, and struggles. "Ganja & Hess", on the other hand, is a horror film that subverts genre conventions and tackles complex themes of addiction, spirituality, and black identity. Finally, "Losing Ground" is a poignant drama about a black academic couple and their marital and artistic crises. The film was Gunn's only theatrical release during his lifetime and is now considered a classic of independent cinema.  

Through this film series, audiences will have the opportunity to discover or revisit Gunn's work and appreciate his unique voice and vision. The series also aims to shed light on the challenges that black filmmakers have faced in the industry and the importance of supporting and promoting diverse voices in cinema.

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Ganja & Hess
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Ganja & Hess

Bill Gunn, 1973, USA, 113 mins

In Focus: Bill Gunn & Homecoming

Flirting with the conventions of blaxploitation and horror, Bill Gunn’s revolutionary independent film Ganja & Hess is a highly stylized and utterly original treatise on sex, religion, and African American identity. Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead) stars as anthropologist Hess Green, who is stabbed with an ancient ceremonial dagger by his unstable assistant (director Bill Gunn), bestowing upon him the blessing of immortality... and the curse of an unquenchable thirst for blood. When the assistant’s beautiful and outspoken wife Ganja (Marlene Clark) comes searching for her missing husband, she and Hess form an unexpected partnership. Together, they explore just how much power blood holds.

Losing Ground
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Losing Ground

Kathleen Collins, 1982, USA, 86 min

In Focus: Bill Gunn & Homecoming

The inimitable Kathleen Collins's second film tells the story of two remarkable people, married and hurtling toward a crossroads in their lives: Sara Rogers, a Black professor of philosophy, is embarking on an intellectual quest just as her painter husband, Victor, sets off on an exploration of joy. Victor decides to rent a country house away from the city, but the couple’s summer idyll becomes complicated by his involvement with a younger model. One of the very first fictional features by an African-American woman, LOSING GROUND remains a stunning and powerful work of art for being a funny, brilliant, and personal member of indie cinema canon.

Personal Problems
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Personal Problems

Bill Gunn, USA, 1980, 165 min

In Focus: Bill Gunn & Homecoming

This entirely African American-conceived and produced ensemble drama is the result of a collaboration of a pair of pioneering Black artists: writer Ishmael Reed and filmmaker Bill Gunn, who wrote and directed the underground classic Ganja & Hess and wrote the screenplay for Hal Ashby's The Landlord. Originally intended to air on public television in 1980, it went unseen for many years.