Over two years after debuting at the Berlin International and South by Southwest film festivals, the first trailer for Timur Bekmambetov’s latest Screenlife thriller Profile has been revealed, teasing the dangerous journey inspired by a true story. The trailer, offering a look at the lengths its central journalist goes to get her story and the thin line she walks before going over the line, can be viewed below!
RELATED: Focus Features Nabs Rights to Timur Bekmambetov’s Profile
The profile is fake. The danger is real. Inspired by an incredible true story, @ProfileMovie is in theaters May 14. Watch the trailer now. pic.twitter.com/4l4RrCZkNH
— Focus Features (@FocusFeatures) April 5, 2021
Inspired by newly-named Anna Érelle’s 2015 nonfiction bestselling novel In the Skin of a Jihadist, the film follows undercover British journalist Amy Whittaker as she decides to pose as a recent convert to Islam in the hopes of baiting and exposing a terrorist recruiter through social media, but finds herself in danger of being sucked in by her recruiter as well as her real identity and motives revealed. The real French journalist the story is based upon is currently under police protection under the identity of Érelle.
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Directed by Bekmambetov on a script from him, Britt Poulson (Them That Follow) and Olga Kharina, the film is produced by the Unfriended filmmaker alongside Kharina via the Bazelevs banner and Igor Tsay, while Valerii An and Oleg Petrov are executive producing for Interface Films alongside Bazelevs’ Adam Sidman & Maria Zatulovskaya and Rick Sobalvarro. The cast for the film is led by Valene Kane (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) as Amy and Shazad Latif (Star Trek: Discovery) as her recruiter as well as Christine Adams (Black Lightning) and Morgan Watkins (The Limehouse Golem).
While films set entirely on a computer were around prior to it, Bekmambetov helped brand the Screenlife genre with producing the hit horror film Unfriended at Universal Pictures, which grossed over $64 million at the global box office on its $1 million budget and earned a sequel. It found further success with the critically acclaimed and financial hit Searching starring John Cho at Sony Pictures, with a stand-alone sequel currently in the works.
