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Will  /  Personal Problems

Will (1981)
August 21, 2015 - 7:30 pm
Billy Wilder Theater

Print courtesy of the Black Film Center/Archive, Indiana University Bloomington.  Preserved with support from the Women's Film Preservation Fund.

Will  (1981)


Considered the first feature film directed by an African American woman, trailblazer Jessie Maple's first feature tells the story of a girls’ basketball coach and former athlete, battling heroin addiction as he and his spouse bring up a 12-year-old street kid, “Little Brother,” that they’ve taken in.  Maple’s unblinking but compassionate telling of their story renders a Harlem not without its troubles, but brimming with humanity. 

Producer: Jessie Maple, Leroy Patton.  Director: Jessie Maple.  Screenwriter: Anthony Wisdom, Jessie Maple.  Based on an original story by Jessie Maple.  Cinematographer: Leroy Patton.  Editor: Willette Coleman.  With: Obaka Adedunyo, Loretta Devine, Robert Dean, Audrey Maple, Ellwoodson Williams.  16mm, color, 70 min.

Personal Problems  (1980)


Acclaimed writer Ishmael Reed, in collaboration with director Bill Gunn, reworks the soap opera genre to illuminate under-represented African American realities and critique the reductive banalities of television—soaps in particular.  The saga of Johnnie Mae Brown, a professional nurse’s aid, leads us through the stresses of her professional and personal life, rendered with a penetrating irony.

Producer: Walter Cotton.  Director: Bill Gunn.  Screenwriter: Ishmael Reed, Walter Cotton.  Cinematographer: Roberto Polidori.  Editor: Bill Gunn.  With: Verta Mae Grosvenor, Walter Cotton, Stacey Harris, Jim Wright, Thommie Blackwell.  Digital video, color, 70 min.

Part of: 
Tell It Like It Is: Black Independents in New York, 1968-1986