Tag: Gina Prince-Bythewood

December 5, 2017 / / Main Slate

Kathleen Collins (1942–1988)

Thirty years after director Kathleen Collins’ death, her landmark film Losing Ground finally received a wide release. Its belated moment in the spotlight is all the more astonishing as it flourished along the festival circuit. To people who are familiar with the film, it is known as one of the first feature films made by an African American woman, if not the first. It is also one of the first times audiences saw an all-black middle class cast on screen, as Nina points out in an interview. The significance of this achievement is easy to overlook in our age of media overstimulation and saturation but mustn’t be, because to do so would be to forget the enormous service that Kathleen Collins did by breaking ground for women filmmakers and filmmakers of color with Losing Ground.

December 4, 2017 / / Main Slate Archive

One of the most inspirational rituals for athletes to partake in before a big game is turning on one of their favorite sports films. Hockey players turn on Miracle. Football athletes watch as Rudy overcomes all of his unimaginable obstacles. If basketball is the sport of choice, the options are limitless—Coach Carter, Hoosiers, Space Jam, White Men Can’t Jump, and He Got Game barely scratch the surface of the holy category of basketball movies that athletes of the same sport can watch. All of these films have huge stars at the helm—Samuel L. Jackson, Gene Hackman, Michael Jordan, Wesley Snipes, and Denzel Washington, respectively. As a ceremonious occasion, athletes turn on their favorite film the night before the championship and put themselves in Jordan or Snipes’s shoes. As Jordan defeats the Monstars in his intergalactic game of basketball, a blossoming basketball star dreams of slamming the ball through the hoop just like Mike. But what is a female basketball player to do? One film that holds a special place in many female basketball players’ hearts is the 2000 film Love & Basketball. Director-writer Gina Prince-Bythewood tells the story of Monica, a girl who loves two things equally: basketball and her childhood neighbor (and fellow basketball star) Quincy. A basketball player herself, Prince-Bythewood somehow manages to do the unfathomable: create a basketball movie not only about a female athlete, but also one who is black.