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.

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Co-Producer:
2003  The Killing Zone

Director:
1995  The Keeper
2003  The Killing Zone
2008  Slaying Goliath
2013  American Promise
2015  A Conversation About Growing Up Black
2015  A Conversation with Black Women on Race
2018  The Changing Same
2019  Drawn to the Mat
2021  Decolonizing Mental Health
2021  Learning to Breathe
2021  The Changing Same - Episode 1: The Dilemma
2023  Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games
2023  Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
????  Freddie Gray Documentary

Executive Producer:
1995  The Keeper
2003  The Killing Zone
2008  Slaying Goliath
2013  American Promise
2015  A Conversation About Growing Up Black
2015  A Conversation with Black Women on Race
2018  The Changing Same
2019  Drawn to the Mat
2020  Stateless
2021  Decolonizing Mental Health
2021  Learning to Breathe
2021  The Changing Same - Episode 1: The Dilemma
2023  Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games
2023  Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
????  Freddie Gray Documentary

Producer:
1995  The Keeper
2003  The Killing Zone
2006  Faces of Change
2008  Slaying Goliath
2010  Coming Home: The Dry Storm
2013  American Promise
2015  A Conversation About Growing Up Black
2015  A Conversation with Black Women on Race
2015  A Conversation with White People on Race
2016  A Mother's Dream
2018  The Changing Same
2019  Drawn to the Mat
2020  Stateless
2021  Decolonizing Mental Health
2021  Elena
2021  Learning to Breathe
2021  The Changing Same - Episode 1: The Dilemma
2023  Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games
2023  Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
2024  The Age of Water
????  Freddie Gray Documentary

Writer:
1995  The Keeper
2003  The Killing Zone
2006  Faces of Change
2008  Slaying Goliath
2010  Coming Home: The Dry Storm
2013  American Promise
2015  A Conversation About Growing Up Black
2015  A Conversation with Black Women on Race
2015  A Conversation with White People on Race
2016  A Mother's Dream
2018  The Changing Same
2019  Drawn to the Mat
2020  Stateless
2021  Decolonizing Mental Health
2021  Elena
2021  Learning to Breathe
2021  The Changing Same - Episode 1: The Dilemma
2023  Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games
2023  Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
2024  The Age of Water
????  Freddie Gray Documentary

About the Movie Section

Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).

Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).

At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.

Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)

While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:

  • I added "runners up" to Top 10 lists, treating them as ties where applicable and numbering them accordingly at the bottom of each list.
  • Regarding those polls wherein "franchise" movies were submitted as one project until BFI's policy changed to regard them separately, I treated them as ties and renumbered the affected lists accordingly (e.g. the Godfather films).

Regarding profile removals and data corrections:

  • If you would like your profile removed from this site, please contact the source of this data directly, TheMovieDB. My assumption is: once it's gone from their site, it should soon be gone from this site.
  • If you would like to correct movie data on this site, please contact the source of this data directly, TheMovieDB. My assumption is: once it's corrected on their site, it should soon be corrected on this site.
  • For additional corrections and profile removals, please e-mail The Open Movie Database (OMDb).

Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).

Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.

Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.