Exclusive: Director Timur Bekmambetov talks new Screenlife film ‘Profile’
Coming out this week from Focus Features is director Timur Bekmambetov’s Profile, which is shot in Screenlife format, something that Bekmambetov has pioneered in his other films Unfriended and Searching. The film made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 2018 and won the Audience Award there.
Profile follows an undercover British journalist in her quest to bait and expose a terrorist recruiter through social media, while trying not to be sucked in by her recruiter and lured into becoming a militant extremist herself. Profile stars Valene Kane (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) and Shazad Latif (Star Trek: Discovery) and is inspired by the 2015 nonfiction bestseller In the Skin of a Jihadist by a French journalist who now has round-the-clock police protection and has changed her name to Anna Érelle.
Profile plays out entirely on a computer screen in the Screenlife format, pioneered by Bekmambetov. It was written by Britt Poulton (Them That Follow) and Bekmambetov and Olga Kharina.
Blackfilmandtv.com recently spoke with Bekmambetov about making this film in Screenlife format.
What went into taking on this project
Timur Bekmambetov: It was a long time ago, like five years ago when I started. I was constantly looking for stories. You cannot tell without Screenlife language. The stories were the drama happening in digital space, where traditional camera and crane and steady cam can not help. There was an article in The Guardian. Then we found the book and the author, and I met her and understood that I can not leave without this movie being made. We're lucky because this movie didn't cost so much. You don't need a studio; you didn't need a lot to make this type of movies. You can do it yourself and it's how we did how we did it.
Did you have to go through a number of meetings to get her to agree for you to do the film?
Timur Bekmambetov: It was just one meeting. We met and she was so nice. It was strange because I met her editor at first in Paris, in her hotel room. She spent a half an hour with with me. When she understood that I'm a good guy she called Anna into the room. It was because she lives under protection and it was important to protect her. Then we were friends since since that meeting.
What is the story that you want to tell? Is there a romance there? Is there a story of manipulation? What do you want come out of this story because it can come out different ways to different people?
Timur Bekmambetov: I think it's a story about the fears of entering the new world. We live in a digital world now and spend half of our time online and we don't really know this world yet. This whole story of ISIS is not the core of the story. For me. It's not a political thriller. It's more a journey of today's person entering the world of Skype, Zooms and chats and with people you have no idea who they are. It's a story about this woman, a very talented journalist trying to get the information she needs to save and protect young girls. The only way for her to do it was to play the role of a young girl and talk with a terrorist. It’s very risky game. This is the dramatic core of the story because she's not an actress. She actually never learned how to act. She really changed herself. It’s like the biblical story of Esther in Babylon. It seems similar. She used herself as a bait and it was a very dangerous game.
Did you do more research outside of the book and what Anna told you?
Timur Bekmambetov: Yeah, we did and me and Olga Kharina, my writing partner. There was tons of files and tons of videos. We spent so much time researching and trying to collect information because a lot of stuff in the movie is not in the book. For example, we discovered that they have a very specific 26 day plan on how to recruit the girls. It was all on the internet and we discovered it. Also, we found a lot of real footage, helping us to shoot exactly what we need. Anna really helped us because she gave me the playlist from her computer from 2014 with the all songs he listened to during her her journey. We read about different cases, like for example, the story of about cats. There were these ISIS fighters who were in love with cats. These small details may made this story believable because details usually makes it real.
Can you talk about Screenlife storytelling?
Timur Bekmambetov: Because it's new. Because it's very important for the society to understand how to film in digital space, what's good, what's evil, not in physical world. Digital space is different. It's not the same. We don't have all the sensors we usually using. You can not smell people. You can not touch people and we need to learn how to behave. We can learn only by telling emotional stories. It's what's happened thousands of years ago when people graded meters and sacred books, and it's what we must do now. The audience really needs it; people looking for the stories
What is the selling point of seeing this story Profile in this format?
Timur Bekmambetov: We know how to use zoom, we know how to use WhatsApp, we know how to use Google search, but we didn't know how to live in this world and be happy. I think what's important. It's not a tutorial on how to use all these applications. I hope it'll be a lesson. It will be a journey for for the audience to understand how to be happy and how to put yourself in this digital world. I think it's wonderful story to create the emotional story and helping people to understand ourselves.