Exclusive: Shazad Latif talks Timur Bekmambetov's 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.

Best known for his role as Chief of Security Ash Tyler in the CBS All Access television series Star Trek: Discovery, this is a big role Latif. Besides the Star Trek series, his other TV credits included the BBC TV series Spooks as well as Toast of London, and Showtime’s Penny Dreadful. BlackFilmandTV.com’s Wilson Morales spoke with Latif on his experience working on Profile.