Video: WE ARE PAT Trailer Previews New Documentary About SNL Character
The documentary will be available digitally on June 23rd.
Following its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2025, We Are Pat, the documentary examining the infamous SNL character, will begin a theatrical run on May 29 in New York, with screenings in Los Angeles, Chicago, and nationwide this summer. Check out the trailer now.
Tribeca Films, the distribution label from Tribeca Enterprises and Giant Pictures, will release We Are Pat digitally on June 23rd. The movie is directed by award-winning filmmaker Rowan Haber, produced by Caryn Capotosto, and executive produced by Tony-winner Alan Cumming.
Created by Julia Sweeney in the 90s, “Pat” became a phenomenon on SNL before facing cultural backlash as conversations around transness and non-binary identity politics evolved. What starts as a pop culture excavation becomes something deeper: a reflection on gender identity, the elasticity of comedy, the ethics of authorship, and what happens when a joke outlives the era it was born in.
Reflecting on her participation in the film, Sweeney said, “I was interviewed over several years for this documentary, never knowing if it would be sympathetic or problematic. Much like Pat, Pat-self, the documentary holds both at the same time. It is so much deeper and richer and more provocative than I ever imagined. And funny. Really, really funny.”
As Haber explains, “I was interested in what happens when you don’t try to resolve a cultural artifact, but instead reopen it and see what’s still alive inside it. We Are Pat uses comedy to sit in that tension, inviting trans comedians to reshape something that once excluded them and ask whether we can laugh at what was meant to laugh at us, and maybe rewrite those harmful narratives in the process.”
The film features a group of trans comics tasked with the challenge of creating a new 2025 Pat sketch in an all-trans writer’s room. The film also includes interviews with Julia Sweeney, Kevin Nealon, Molly Kearney, Abby McEnany, Murray Hill, Nori Reed, Robin Tran, Sabrina Wu, Roz Hernandez, James Tom, Ally Beardsley, JD Samson, River Gallo, Riv Butcher, Grace Freud, April Clark, Ever Mainard, Hayden Johnson, Brontez Purnell, and Jules Gill-Peterson.
Additional talent behind the camera includes executive producers Adrian Salpeter, Bill & Ruth Ann Harnisch - The Harnisch Foundation, Jenny Raskin, Geralyn White Dreyfous, J Winkelried, Pierre Hauser, Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Chandra Jessee, Marci Wiseman, Daniel J. Chalfen, Dawn Bonder, Eric Kuhn, Beth Levison, Shauna Schmunk, Lilly Wachowski, Lauren Greenfield, and Frank Evers, Stuart Ford, Lourdes Diaz, Caroline Libresco and Meadow Fund; Co-Executive Producers Kelsey Koenig, Eric Szmanda, Kirsten Vangsness, JanaLee Cherneski, Ashlin Hatch, Sam Paige; Co-Producers Ryan Cunningham, Katherine Fisher and Leo DiSantis.
It is written by Hannah Buck and Rowan Haber. Directors of Photography are Christine Ng and Mego Lin, with original music by Erick del Aguila. Hannah Buck and Alex Bohs served as editors.
Photo credit: We Are Pat, LLC
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