Vera Drew issues post-TIFF statement: “Free The People’s Joker“

Vera Drew has issued a new statement about her film The People’s Joker tonight, commenting on its (extremely) limited run at the Toronto International Film Festival this week, and promising that, despite the desires of “a media conglomerate that shall remain nameless,” the film will “screen again very soon at several other festivals worldwide.” Drew concluded her message with a rallying cry to fans of the film, which she described, at its genesis, as a “queer coming-of-age story about being trans and working in comedy”: “FREE THE PEOPLE’S JOKER.”

Drew also offered some insight into what went down at TIFF, where The People’s Joker ran exactly once before being pulled off the schedule. She notes, for instance, that the production was not hit by a legal-weighted cease-and-desist from Warner Bros., but simply an “angry letter” that pressured her not to screen the film. “After being fully transparent with TIFF,” Drew writes, “We agreed to premiere as planned while scaling back our plans for for later screenings to mitigate potential blowback.” She also praised organizers at TIFF as “some of TPJ’s biggest supporters.”

The big question surrounding Drew’s film—which plays in the space of a parody of any number of Warner Bros.-owned Joker properties, including Joaquin Phoenix in Joker and Jared Leto in Suicide Squad—is whether it falls under fair use as parody protections. Drew says she’s had the movie vetted by lawyers for exactly that reason, constructing the film to abide by fair use standards. (Of course, the reality is that “unnamed media conglomerates” have a lot more time, lawyers, and money to hash that sort of thing out than comedians and independent filmmakers.)

Still, Drew remains optimistic: “We are humbly seeking a distribution partner who believes in what we are doing,” she writes, “Will protect us, and will eventually help us make this film accessible to trans people and their families everywhere.”