Last fall, I went to see a documentary at the Montclair Film Festival in New Jersey. I was rapt, watching the film, when I was struck with a surprise: I was in it!
The documentary was Ask E. Jean, which follows E. Jean Carroll, from her career as a writer, to her alleged sexual assault by President Trump in the 1990s (he was found liable for sexual abuse in 2023), to the toll of his constant insults to her $83.3 million victory against him in a defamation lawsuit. I interviewed Carroll about those same topics with her winning attorney Robbie Kaplan onstage at a Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in New York in 2024, clips of which the filmmakers used to close out the doc.
Since seeing the film in October, I’ve been eager to talk more about it. There was just one problem: for months, the documentary couldn’t find distribution. Director Ivy Meeropol wrote a NYT op-ed about all the challenges she faced bringing the film to viewers beyond the festival circuit, and I caught up with her recently about the long journey as well. The film first screened at the Telluride Film Festival. “People were so excited to see her there, the responses were so great—and we didn’t get any offers,” Meeropol remembers. After a lot of work, the film got one offer—and then that buyer completely ghosted. Meanwhile, last spring about five people associated with the film—from executive producers to young crew on green cards—asked to have their names scrubbed from the credits.
