Joe Brewster
Joe Brewster is an American psychiatrist and filmmaker who directs and produces fiction films, documentaries and new media focused on the experiences of communities of color. With partner Michèle Stephenson he founded Rada Studio to tell stories about communities that have been neglected by the mainstream media and contribute to the American narrative mosaic. Together, while raising a family in Brooklyn, New York, Brewster and Stephenson have directed and produced documentary and fiction films. In 2008, they directed Slaying Goliath, a documentary that follows 10 days in the life of their son's fifth grade basketball team from Harlem, New York as they experience culture clash at a national tournament in suburban Florida. Brewster and Stephenson also produced and directed Faces of Change, which follows five activists on five continents fighting racism in their communities.
American Promise (2013)
In 1999, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson turned the camera on themselves and began filming their five-year-old son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, as they started kindergarten at the prestigious Dalton School just as the private institution was ... (more)
In 1999, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson turned the camera on themselves and began filming their five-year-old son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, as they started kindergarten at the prestigious Dalton School just as the private institution was ... (more)
The Killing Zone (2003)
Killing Zone is the story of an affluent Harlem psychiatrist living an unexamined life until his adoptive father- a doctor who plucked him from a Nigerian refugee camp as a child - is gunned down by an eleven-year-old in Brooklyn. In an instant, everything he's ... (more)
Killing Zone is the story of an affluent Harlem psychiatrist living an unexamined life until his adoptive father- a doctor who plucked him from a Nigerian refugee camp as a child - is gunned down by an eleven-year-old in Brooklyn. In an instant, everything he's ... (more)
The Keeper (1995)
Paul Lamont, a corrections officer and law student, leads a comfortable if culturally bankrupt, middle-class existence. Lamont's marriage is already in trouble when he bails out a mysterious Haitian, Jean Baptiste, in the belief that Baptiste has been wrongly ... (more)
Paul Lamont, a corrections officer and law student, leads a comfortable if culturally bankrupt, middle-class existence. Lamont's marriage is already in trouble when he bails out a mysterious Haitian, Jean Baptiste, in the belief that Baptiste has been wrongly ... (more)
The Changing Same (2018)
Eighty years after the lynching of Claude Neal, Florida's last spectacle killing, his ghost arises from the grave and we are all better off for it. In the Florida Panhandle lies the provincial town of Marianna, Florida, where one native resident runs a particular ... (more)
Eighty years after the lynching of Claude Neal, Florida's last spectacle killing, his ghost arises from the grave and we are all better off for it. In the Florida Panhandle lies the provincial town of Marianna, Florida, where one native resident runs a particular ... (more)
Learning to Breathe
(2021)
The lives of these young men are compared and contrasted with who they were five years ago, about who they are now, and how their perspectives on race, justice, and social inequality have changed. (more)
The lives of these young men are compared and contrasted with who they were five years ago, about who they are now, and how their perspectives on race, justice, and social inequality have changed. (more)
Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (2023)
Intimate vérité, archival footage, and visually innovative treatments of poetry take us on a journey through the dreamscape of legendary queer poet Nikki Giovanni as she reflects on her life and legacy. (more)
Intimate vérité, archival footage, and visually innovative treatments of poetry take us on a journey through the dreamscape of legendary queer poet Nikki Giovanni as she reflects on her life and legacy. (more)
The Changing Same - Episode 1: The Dilemma (2021)
The Changing Same is a magical realist, immersive, episodic virtual reality experience where the participant travels through time and space to witness the connected historical experiences of racial injustice in America. (more)
The Changing Same is a magical realist, immersive, episodic virtual reality experience where the participant travels through time and space to witness the connected historical experiences of racial injustice in America. (more)
Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games (2023)
An illuminating look at the influence that hand games played by Black girls has had on the American creative landscape. (more)
An illuminating look at the influence that hand games played by Black girls has had on the American creative landscape. (more)