Personal Problems

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; the original tapes have been carefully restored and the film is now available in its full-length version for the first time in decades!

"The movie's panoramic cityscapes teem with the gritty details of emotional life: romance and chores, hope and despair and loss, bitter resentments and rowdy reckonings with mortality." - Richard Brody, New Yorker

"For all its rough edges, PERSONAL PROBLEMS retains a vitality and an integrity that practically bounds off the screen." - Glenn Kenny, The New York Times