SPACE

Screening Monday, June 22, 𝙒𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙚 𝙋𝙖𝙩 is a feature-length documentary exploring the evolution of gender identity and comedy from the ‘90s to now through the lens of the iconic SNL sketch, It’s Pat, and its central character created by Julia Sweeney.

From filmmaker Rowan Haber and executive produced by Alan Cu***ng and Lilly Wachowski (The Matrix), the documentary examines Pat’s origins as a joke rooted in cultural anxiety of the ‘90s around gender while drawing striking parallels to today’s culture wars around transness and queerness.

Trans and non-binary comedians and culture-makers reimagine and rewrite the original Pat sketches, using camp and humor to reclaim and re-envision an iconic character in American comedy. The film explores humor as both a tool of oppression and a radical force for change. Beyond comedy, We Are Pat raises complex questions: How does art age? What responsibility does a creator have as cultural values evolve? Can we reclaim narratives that once mocked us, transforming pain into laughter, visibility, and ultimately, our own creations?

“One of the most impactful parts of the documentary is when Sweeney, while speaking to the table of comedians consulting on the new Pat project, has an epiphany of her own. Pat for her was a rebellion against the patriarchal norms that were impressed upon Sweeney as she grew up.” - The Black C.A.P.E.

June 22 • Mon 7 pm, doors at 6:30
𝙒𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙚 𝙋𝙖𝙩 🎞️
dir. Rowan West Haber • 88 min.
$10, $7 for SPACE members

Called “an overwhelmingly emotional experience” by anyone from contemporary English filmmakers, generations of critics, and your own parents (probably), 𝙒𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥 𝘿𝙤𝙬𝙣 is a landmark moment in film animation. We’re screening this 1978 classic on Saturday afternoon as a 4 pm matinee screening, followed by its spiritual follow-up The Plague Dogs, both beautifully restored in 4K.

With this passion project, screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved what had been thought nearly impossible: a faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits under terrible threat from modern forces. With its naturalistic hand-drawn animation, dreamily expressionistic touches, gorgeously bucolic background design, and elegant voice work from such superb English actors as John Hurt, Ralph Richardson, Richard Briers, and Denholm Elliott, Watership Down is an emotionally arresting, dark-toned allegory about freedom amid political turmoil.

June 13 • Sat 4 pm, doors at 3:30
𝙒𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥 𝘿𝙤𝙬𝙣 🎞️
dir. Martin Rosen • 96 min.
$10, $7 for SPACE members
Co-presented with pmafilms_maine