Black on Screen: Inner Lives, Outer Frames

“Inner Lives, Outer Frames” is the third program in New York Stories on Screen, the fourth season of Black on Screen, guest-curated by Alfreda’s Cinema.

Losing Ground (1982) directed by the late filmmaker and writer Kathleen Collins, offers a radical vision of Black intellectual and emotional life with layered interior storytelling. The film follows Sara (Seret Scott), a philosophy professor navigating love, intellect, and creative awakening during a summer upstate.

The program opens with Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich's short film Cleopatra at the Mall (2024) that drifts through contemporary spaces of spectacle and consumption, reimagining mythic power within the everyday landscape of the shopping mall.

Across decades, these two films meet in a shared inquiry: what does it look like for a Black woman artist to claim space for thought, pleasure, and imagination? Together, the films establish a dialogue across time about performance, interiority, and artistic self-definition, highlighting the enduring brilliance of Black women filmmakers as they shape their own cinematic worlds. Following the screening, Alfreda’s Cinema founder, Melissa Lyde will moderate a conversation with Nina Collins, and Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich.

Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture, captures 100 years of local and transnational Black movement work and artistic evolution on film. Sourced from The Schomburg’s collection and others, it takes a kaleidoscopic look at Black life and expression across diasporas, rendering a range of storytelling traditions that incite and inspire Black world-building. The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division (MIRS, pronounced “meers”) at the Schomburg Center collects and preserves audio and moving image (AMI) materials related to the experiences of people of African descent. The division has amassed nearly 400 collections, approximately 5,000 square feet, in a variety of formats, which captures the gestures and sounds of major historical, artistic and cultural moments and influencers. While the strength is the Black American holdings there is considerable Caribbean and African representation in the collection.

This year, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture continues celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! Join us all year long for a wide array of special events, exhibitions, and more as we celebrate this milestone and continue the legacy of Arturo Schomburg.

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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. After the event starts all registered seats are released regardless of registration, so we recommend that you arrive early. We generally overbook to ensure a full house.

GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

ACCESSIBLILITY Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that personal and professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

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Host or Publisher Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture