Jordan Firstman’s ‘Club Kid’ Dances to Rave Ovation At Cannes Premiere

Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid found the beat during the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday afternoon, dancing its way to an electric seven-minute standing ovation.

Firstman, in a first as writer-director-executive producer and star, soaked in the attention while hugging his stars, including Diego Calva and Cara Delevingne. The 126-minute film premiered in the festival’s Un Certain Regard selection. Club Kid casts Firstman as a washed-up party promoter who is forced to turn his life around when an unexpected visitor arrives — his 10-year-old son. Eldar Isgandarov and Reggie Absolom also star.

“Any gay people in the house? Okay, the door is that way. You’re not welcome here. We’re gonna have to ask you how to leave the straight-only audience, please,” Firstman joked before the screening. “I’m so fucking happy right now. This is such a dream come true. I mean, for everyone, there’s a kind of semi-niche gay viral meme that was going around in New York a lot last year, and it was a picture of a can of soup, and it said, ‘Some of you bitches would go to the opening of a can, and if the can sent you free clothes, you would post,’ thank you, the can!’ And so I put that in the movie, always hoping that one day I would get to say, ‘Thank you, the Cannes.’”

He added: “This movie was such an incredible experience, such a labor of love, a lot of crying, a lot of laughter, a lot of joy, and yeah, I think it’s a film about cultivating kindness within your community and kindness for yourself, and yeah, I just hope you all feel it and like it. I just want to thank my beautiful cast here for giving me their time and their spirit and their stories and their souls and their looks. Let’s just say it: they’re hot.”

The jokes continued. “What an honor to play in the ‘Da-Bussy,’” Firstman later joked, intentionally mispronouncing the name of the Cannes Debussy theater. “I love ‘Da-Bussy.’ I can’t get enough of ‘Da-Bussy.’ I can live in ‘Da-Bussy,’ and I can’t wait for my film to screen in ‘Da-Bussy.’”

After the premiere ovation, the filmmaker shared some more thoughts. “I don’t really have much more to say, and I’m just so humbled,” he said. “This is a very personal story for me. And just the amount it took to get this done. We shot in real parties in New York, and to be let into the community, to be let into those spaces. Most of y’all couldn’t even get in without a camera, and we got in with a camera. No, no, you guys can get in. Everyone’s on the list! Thank you!”

Firstman indeed shot the film in real clubs around New York City over the course of 26 days. “We were granted access to spaces that no one can even get to in life, let alone be filmed,” Firstman told The Hollywood Reporter’s Mia Galuppo. “We were let in because I was already there partying, and these are my friends. The invitation was not taken for granted.”

The subject matter was also personal for the creative, who cut his teeth as a writer on such shows as Search Party and The Other Two and as a consulting producer on Big Mouth. He’s also been busy acting for years with credits that include Hacks, I Love LA, Dave, Rotting in the Sun, You People and more.