WATCH TRAILER

PROFILED

A film by Kathleen Foster

US | 2016 | 52 minutes | Color | DVD | Order No. 161190 |

Host a screening
Watch on Docuseek

SYNOPSIS

Profiled knits the stories of mothers of Black and Latino youth murdered by the NYPD into a powerful indictment of racial profiling and police brutality, and places them within a historical context of the roots of racism in the U.S. Some of the victims—Eric Garner, Michael Brown—are now familiar the world over. Others, like Shantel Davis and Kimani Gray, are remembered mostly by family and friends in their New York neighborhoods.

Ranging from the routine harassment of minority students in an affluent Brooklyn neighborhood to the killings and protests in Staten Island and Ferguson, Missouri, PROFILED bears witness to the racist violence that remains an everyday reality for Black and Latino people in this country. Moving interviews with victims’ family members are juxtaposed with sharply etched analyses by evolutionary biologist, Joseph L.Graves, Jr, (The Race Myth) and civil rights lawyer, Chauniqua D. Young, (Center for Constitutional Rights, Stop and Frisk lawsuit). PROFILED gives us a window on one of the burning issues of our time.

PRESS

"… thought-provoking…shows the continued stark disparities in our racial justice system, particularly against African Americans and Latinos… the issue of racial profiling is not a new one; rather it aims to keep our attention trained on it so that we may create solutions."

Helen Yuen Reginald F. Lewis Museum of MD Africa American History & Culture

"Unlike the dozens of films out there documenting the most recent wave of racist state violence, Kathleen Foster’s “Profiled” is neither tragedy nor spectacle. It is inspirational. The mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, teachers, students, artists, neighbors, and organizers who tell their stories share a single message: mourn and organize, unite and fight. This stops today."

Robin D. G. Kelley, PhD Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in US History, UCLA

"Profiled is a powerful documentary and a crucial contribution to the discussion of race and racism in America – both in terms of its economic and ideological impact.”

Pat Keeton Professor of Communication Arts, Ramapo College of New Jersey

"Excellent! A very real film showing statistics and accurate data of how our families were brutalized then, during our ancestors' time and now! This has to stop! We are more than hashtags and body bags."

Tawanda Jones Activist & Sister of Tyrone West

“Foster’s superb documentary is part anthropology, part history and completely on message for here and NOW. The film’s topic is extraordinarily relevant as racial profiling has certainly become the center of explosive controversy in media and society. A must see !"

Ricky Bernstein, Series Coordinator Berkshire Human Rights Speaker Series on BLACK LIVES MATTER

“…vibrant, empathetic, and intelligently realized work… Thank you for your work, your artistry, and your diligence in making it all come together.”

Michael Royce Executive Director, New York Foundation for the Arts

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

  • Paul Robeson Award Honorary Mention, The Newark Black Film Festival
  • San Diego Black Film Festival
  • Workers Unite Film Festival
  • Seattle Transmedia & Independent Film Festival
  • Reel Awareness Human Rights Film Festival
  • Brazilian International Labour Film Festival: Mostra CineTrabalho

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Kathleen Foster

Kathleen Foster is a British-born, New York-based, independent producer and director of cutting-edge films about social justice.

Her work has screened nationally and internationally at a variety of venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Asia Society, the Queens Museum, the Brussels Fiction and Documentary Festival (Belgium), the Creteil International Women’s Film Festival (France), the World Performing Arts Festival (Lahore, Pakistan), Cinema Village, UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art, Anthology Film Archives, New York University, Columbia University, Boston University, Maryland Institute College of Art, UCLA, Howard University, and Princeton University.

She has received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Funding Exchange, the Paul Robeson Fund, the Yip Harburg Foundation, the Lifebridge Foundation, the Len Ragozin Foundation, the Experimental Television Center, and individual donors.

Foster is the recipient of a number of awards. In 2006 Women in Islam presented her with a Compass Awardfor her film Point of Attack. This award honors women whose work exemplifies the legacy of Dr. Betty Shabazz. Point of Attack also received the American Library Association’s Notable Video Award in 2005.At the Workers Unite Film Festival of 2013, 10 Years On: Afghanistan and Pakistan was named Best Short Documentary.

The authors of American War Cinema and Media Since Vietnam (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) cited Foster’s 2007 documentaryAfghan Women: A History of Struggle as one of only three films that "challenge the dominant ideologies found in contemporary mainstream American war films."

Her current project, Profiled, scheduled to be released in early spring 2016, continues her commitment to films about social justice.

Her films are distributed by Cinema Guild, Third World Newsreel and Filmmakers Library. (4/16))

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

Standing on My Sisters' Shoulders

In 1965, when three women walked into the US House of Representatives in Washington D.C., they had come a very long way. Neither lawyers nor politicians, they were ordinary women from Mississippi,and descendants of African slaves. They had come to their country’s capital seeking civil rights, the first black women to be allowed in the senate chambers in nearly 100 years. A missing chapter in our nation’s record of the Civil Rights movement, this powerful documentary reveals the movement in Mississippi in the 1950’s and 60’s from the point of view of the courageous women who lived it – and emerged as its grassroots leaders. Their living testimony offers a window into a unique moment when the founders’ promise of freedom and justice passed from rhetoric to reality for all Americans. Through moving interviews and powerful archival footage, STANDING ON MY SISTERS' SHOULDERS weaves a story of commitment, passion and perseverance and tells the story of the women fought for change in Mississippi and altered the course of American history forever.
Learn more

Wilhemina's War

In much of America, progress in HIV/AIDS treatment suggests the worst is behind us, but every year 50,000 Americans are still diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS. Astonishingly, it’s one of the leading causes of death of African American women. And nearly half of the Americans with HIV live in the South, where the AIDS epidemic has taken root in rural communities. WILHEMINA’S WAR is an intimate, personal narrative that tells the story of one family’s struggle with HIV over the course of five years. Despite facing institutional and personal obstacles every step of the way, 62-year-old Wilhemina Dixon works tirelessly to combat the stigma and care for her daughter and granddaughter, both HIV-positive. Emmy award winning journalist and Professor June Cross finds Wilhemina, a one woman army fighting against a systemic dehumanization that’s the result of centuries of racism, and lack of access to drugs and treatment. Her story touches upon many of the structural issues that contribute to the alarming rising trend of HIV-positive women in the South: lack of education, lack of access to quality healthcare, lack of transportation, and silence and stigma in the local church congregations. This urgent documentary lays bare the intersection of poverty, race and politics with women’s health and security in the rural south, while showing determination in the face of adversity, and the triumph of the human spirit. Essential viewing for African-American Studies and Public Health courses.
Learn more

Southern Rites

Broadcast nationally on HBO, SOUTHERN RITES is a powerful portrayal of how perceptions and politics have divided two towns in southeast Georgia along racial lines for years. In 2009, The New York Times Magazine published filmmaker and acclaimed photographer Gillian Laub’s controversial images of Montgomery County High School’s racially segregated proms. A media furor ensued and under extreme pressure, the Georgian town was forced to finally integrate the proms in 2010. Laub returned camera in hand to document the changes, only to stumble upon a series of events far more indicative of race relations in the Deep South: old wounds are reopened following the murder of an unarmed young black man by an elderly white town patriarch. Against the backdrop of an historic campaign to elect its first African-American sheriff, the case divides locals along well-worn racial lines and threatens to drag the town back to darker days. SOUTHERN RITES documents one town's painful struggle to progress while confronting longstanding issues of race, equality and justice. Through her hauntingly intimate portrait, Laub reveals the horror and humanity of these complex, intertwined narratives, a chronicle of their courage in the face of injustice. Laub’s film captures a world caught between eras and values with extraordinary candor and immediacy— and ultimately asks whether a new generation can make a different future for itself from a difficult past.
Learn more

Coded Bias

When MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini discovers that many facial recognition technologies misclassify women and darker-skinned faces, she delves into an investigation of widespread bias in algorithms.
Learn more

White Right: Meeting the Enemy

Muslim filmmaker Deeyah Khan’s Emmy-winning look at the personal and political motivations behind the resurgence of far-right extremism in the U.S.
Learn more

Black Girl in Suburbia

For many Black girls raised in the suburbs, the experiences of going to school, playing on the playground, and living day-to-day life can be uniquely alienating. BLACK GIRL IN SUBURBIA looks at the suburbs of America from the perspective of women of color. Filmmaker Melissa Lowery shares her own childhood memories of navigating racial expectations both subtle and overt-including questions like, "Hey, I just saw a Black guy walking down the street; is that your cousin?" Through conversations with her own daughters, with teachers and scholars who are experts in the personal impacts of growing up a person of color in a predominately white place, this film explores the conflicts that many Black girls in homogeneous hometowns have in relating to both white and Black communities. BLACK GIRL IN SUBURBIA is a great discussion starter for Freshman orientation week and can be used in a wide variety of educational settings including classes in sociology, race relations, African American Studies, Women's Studies, and American Studies.
Learn more

Exit: Leaving Extremism Behind

A former right-wing extremist explores why people join hate groups and what makes them decide to leave.
Learn more
Shopping Cart