PERSONAL PROBLEMS

A VIDEO SOAP OPERA

ISMAEL REED AND STEVE CANNON PRESENT A FILM BY BILL GUNN

Personal Problems is a raw, improvisational “meta–soap opera” directed by Bill Gunn (Ganja & Hess) that captures Black working-class life in late-1970s Harlem with startling intimacy. Centered on Johnnie Mae Brown and her circle of friends, lovers, and family, the film unfolds through long, unguarded conversations about marriage, desire, therapy, creativity, and emotional survival - moments where humour and pain sit side by side.

Developed from an original idea by Ishmael Reed and produced with Steve Cannon through Reed/Cannon Communications, the film draws directly from New York’s Black literary and artistic underground. Gunn works with an ensemble that includes Vertamae Grosvenor, Walter Cotton, Jim Wright, and Sam Waymon, encouraging improvisation that blurs fiction and lived experience. 

Originally produced between 1980 and 1981 and shot on video with a stripped-down, vérité feel, Personal Problems rejects polish in favor of truth. 
Long unseen in its complete form, it now stands as a quietly radical landmark of independent Black cinema - intimate and deeply alive.

Other Parties will bring Personal Problems to the UK in summer 2026, with special screenings and collaborations.