Tribeca Films has acquired the documentary We Are Pat, focused on the legacy of the androgynous Saturday Night Live character played by Julia Sweeney, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.
The film, directed by Rowan Haber, premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Festival and earned a special jury mention for new documentary director.
Tribeca Films, the distribution label from Tribeca Enterprises and Giant Pictures, will release We Are Pat digitally in June.
We Are Pat features Haber and a number of queer and trans comedians and writers, including Sweeney, exploring the significance of “It’s Pat,” more than 35 years after the character first appeared in an SNL sketch. The group seeks to reframe and reclaim the ’90s pop culture figure as an empowering character not an object of ridicule. In addition to Sweeney, the doc also features Kevin Nealon, Molly Kearney, Abby McEnany, Murray Hill, Nori Reed, Robin Tran, Sabrina Wu, Roz Hernandez and others.
“We Are Pat explores what happens when the person once laughed at becomes the one holding the mirror,” Haber said in a statement. “It is about memory, discomfort, love, and the strange hope that even our most complicated cultural artifacts can be reimagined with care.”
Sweeney added, “Without filmmaker Rowan Haber’s ‘Pat’ obsession, I would never have fully thought through my relationship to Pat – a wildly popular character that I created that unexpectedly struck a nerve in popular culture. I was interviewed over several years for this documentary, never knowing if it would be sympathetic or critical. Much like Pat-self, the documentary is both. I’m so happy I agreed to participate. We Are Pat is so much deeper and richer and more provocative than I ever imagined. And funny. Really, really funny.”
After We Are Pat premiered at the Tribeca Festival, Alan Cumming and Adrian Salpeter joined as executive producers.
“I’m delighted to executive produce We Are Pat, a film that joyfully reclaims Julia Sweeney’s iconic SNL character as the non-binary icon they were always meant to be—smart, heartfelt, and deliciously subversive,” Cumming said in a statement. Under Rowan Haber’s assured direction, the film honors the past while cheekily rewriting it, delivering wit, warmth, and the last laugh.”
Haber produced the documentary with Caryn Capotosto. Executive producers, in addition to Cumming and Salpeter, include Bill and Ruth Ann Harnisch — The Harnisch Foundation, Jenny Raskin, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Pierre Hauser, Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Chandra Jessee, Marci Wiseman, Daniel J. Chalfen, Dawn Bonder, J Winkelried, Eric Kuhn, Beth Levison, Shauna Schmunk, Lilly Wachowski, Lauren Greenfield and Frank Evers, Stuart Ford, Lourdes Diaz, Caroline Libresco and Meadow Fund.
