Since it premiered just over a year ago at last year’s Telluride Film Festival, mainstream distributors and streamers wouldn’t touch the documentary “Ask E. Jean,” which profiles advice columnist E. Jean Carroll amid her legal battle for defamation with President Trump. The film‘s director Ivy Meeropol outwardly has blamed “The Trump Effect” for why buyers have “ghosted” her in getting the film released. So Meeropol has turned to some unconventional measures.
Over the last several months, “Ask E. Jean” has played in over 100 theaters across the country and sold out New York’s IFC Center, leading to a five-week engagement of the film in NY, as well as additional screenings in over 90 cities and 30 states. The audience demand has been there, even if other distributors have feared the commercial prospects of a political documentary or quite simply feared retribution from the Trump administration.
But it has done so via the joint efforts of five different companies whom have all come together to help distribute it through more grassroots means: Impact Partners, which helped produce and finance “Ask E. Jean,” Theorem Media, a marketing studio that took this on as a non-profit release, Roco Films, which has led educational access for schools, colleges, and students, Abramorama, which handled the physical theatrical distribution, and Kinema, which is a platform that gives communities the means to host their own screenings and viewing parties. The companies don’t normally release films together, but this one was special.
Now, all five of those collaborators are again teaming up to finally bring “Ask E. Jean” to streaming on Kinema, where it has just launched today, September 2, for a premium video on demand window, IndieWire can reveal exclusively. The film is available for digital rental for $8.99 via Kinema, and it is continuing its theatrical run as well.
Christie Marchese of Kinema and Jenny McQuaile of Theorem Media told IndieWire that it was obvious no major streamer was going to step up anytime soon with a streaming deal and help make the film more ubiquitously available, so they had to pool their resources and get it out there themselves. We’ve written before about the ways in which Kinema has worked to create an infrastructure for DIY, independent distribution, not treating other platforms as competitors but building an entire flywheel for filmmakers. And Marchese said especially in the case of “Ask E. Jean,” all five companies are “stronger together.”
“The distribution landscape, it’s fundamentally broken and ripe for some change,” McQuaile added. “I think this moment is a manifestation of that, which is bringing a coalition of incredible partners all doing similar work together to raise up the profile of a film and more importantly get content to audiences where they are and how they want to consume it.”
The benefit of releasing a movie like “Ask E. Jean” this way is twofold. For one, making the film available through Apple, Amazon, or other TVOD platforms would limit the upside that can actually go directly back to the filmmakers, as Kinema’s revenue share is relatively small compared to other platforms. But more importantly, this release strategy gives the team more control over how it is rolled out. The companies can make the premium VOD window as long or as short as they wish (it will likely be through the end of the year), they can add it to TVOD or other SVOD services at a later date, it can still remain in theaters, and those who rent it can also choose to use Kinema’s services to host screenings or fundraisers on behalf of the film.
“We really think that this film provokes such incredible and important conversations that hosting screening events and having those post-screening conversations in real life with communities is proving to be really, really important and really, really valuable,” McQuaile said.
Kinema and Theorem Media are each leveraging their own marketing arms to promote the film and reach targeted audiences that want to host such conversations. Kinema, for instance, recently held a virtual watch party in which over 750 households all simultaneously streamed “Ask E. Jean” along with a virtual Q&A. And Theorem has seen over 3.1 million organic Instagram views for “Ask E. Jean” promos and content with a strong engagement rate.
So it’s not to say that “Ask E. Jean” doesn’t have distribution in the way even Meeropol has said, but it’s a form of distribution that is very different from what she and many other filmmakers have ever known.
“This has been a whole new adventure for her in terms of creatively distributing in a different way and thinking about it differently,” McQuaile said. “Sometimes she was talking about not having distribution when in fact we are distributing the film. It’s just not in a traditional way that perhaps she’s used to. It’s the new world, and I think more and more filmmakers are seeing that.”
