Ebook: Kathleen Collins: The Black Essai Film

Explores the New York Black Independent Film movement in the context of Kathleen Collins’s work as a philosopher filmmaker

• Analyses Collins's films as the site of a convergence of ideas on philosophy, otherness, art, aesthetics and the craft of filmmaking
• Provides contexts for Collins's use of African American folklore and oral culture in her films
• Examines Collins's influence on African American woman filmmakers

A philosopher-filmmaker, Kathleen Collins decisively redefined the parameters of African American film with The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (1980) and Losing Ground (1982). This book uses detailed analyses of Collins’s films to contextualise her work in the African American, feminist and world film traditions, and it highlights her contribution to each of these canons.

Exploring the philosophical aspects of Collins’s films and placing her in a genealogy of African American auteurs, Geetha Ramanathan argues that Collins uses film to integrate diverse elements of African American culture, showing how the medium can transform the visual and become a site of convergence for ideas on philosophy, otherness, art, aesthetics and the craft of filmmaking.