The People’s Joker will be laughing its way to the big screen, with indie distributor Altered Innocence picking up the feature’s North American rights.
To start, the Los Angeles-based Altered Innocence will put The People’s Joker in New York’s IFC Center April 5, with more markets to come at a later date. Its initial engagement at IFC is one week, with the possibility of extending. Though it’s a small distribution plan for now, it’s noteworthy as for a time it was unclear if the project would land a home.
Filmmaker Vera Drew directed, co-wrote, edited and stars in the DC parody feature as Joker the Harlequin, an aspiring clown coming to terms with her gender identity as a trans woman. Though it borrows from the fantastical world of DC Comics, the coming-of-age story also draws from Drew’s life.
The absurdist movie made headlines a year ago, when Drew was preparing to screen the film at the Toronto Film Festival, but then received a letter from DC owner Warner Bros. Discovery asking her to not show the project publicly. Ultimately, the film festival went forward with a premiere, but it was removed from other screenings.
Drew has maintained that as a parody, her project is fair use under the First Amendment, and distributor Altered Innocence agrees. After receiving the letter from Warners ahead of TIFF, the film went on to screen at several other festivals without legal action from the conglomerate.
“This movie started as a DIY community project for queer artists and I made it with my friends to process what it was like coming out as a trans woman working in the film and TV industry,” Drew said in a statement. “It has been a long road freeing The People’s Joker and finding a release plan that rings true to the queer, anarchist spirit we had while making it. What better home than among Altered Innocence’s catalog of gorgeously gay and deliciously edgy films.”
Drew came up in the world of comedy earned an Emmy nomination as lead editor of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America? She enlisted comedy talent for cameos in The People’s Joker, including Tim Heidecker, Bob Odenkirk, Maria Bamford and Scott Aukerman. The main cast includes Lynn Downey, Nathan Faustyn and Kane Distle.
“Vera Drew has taken her own life experiences and traumas to craft an entirely new genre of cinema that blurs the lines between documentary, coming-of-age film, and parody,” said Altered Innocence founder Frank Jaffe. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to champion this bold, intelligent, and hilarious piece of queer cinema that audiences around the globe have fallen in love with.”