“Student”, dramatic film Donald Trump Rising through connections to New York City real estate and political power brokers Roy Cohnwill hit theaters in October during the tail end of the presidential election, according to a source familiar with the deal.
Independent distributor Briarcliff Entertainment plans to release the film on October 11, a source said. It stars Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong of “The Governor” fame as Cohn, one of the former president’s mentors.
The Disciple premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May, where it immediately became a socio-political lightning rod. Stephen Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s election campaign, called the film “pure malicious defamation” in a statement at the time.
“We will go to court to address the blatantly false claims of these ambitious filmmakers,” Cheung said. “This garbage is pure fabrication sensationalizing lies that have been exposed long ago.” (It’s unclear whether the campaign has filed suit.)
In response to a request for comment on Friday, Cheung sent NBC News a similarly worded statement blasting the film.
The film has caused controversy in part because it contains a dramatic scene where Trump allegedly sexually assaults his first wife, Ivan, played by Maria Bakalova in the movie After Borat.
In 1990, Ivana Trump claimed that Donald Trump raped her in her divorce petition. She denied the allegation, and later said she wasn’t being literal, but rather that she felt violated by her ex-husband. He died in 2022.
The director of the film “The Disciple” is the Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, and the script is written by the journalist of Vanity Fair magazine, Gabriel Sherman, who has covered Trump and his political allies for more than ten years. Cohn died of AIDS-related complications in 1986, although he denied having HIV. He was 59 years old.
A representative for Abbasi did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Trump campaign’s statement.
Asked by journalists in Cannes about the Trump team’s threat to sue, Abbasi suggested that the former president watch the film.
“I don’t think it’s a movie he wouldn’t like,” Abbasi said. “I don’t think he’ll like it. I think he would be surprised, you know?
“I would suggest that we go and meet with him wherever he wants, talk about the context of the film, show it and then talk about it, if that’s something that would be of interest to someone in the Trump campaign,” the director added.
Briarcliff Entertainment has a track record of releasing controversial projects. After protests from other studios, the company released The Dissident, a 2020 documentary about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The company also distributed progressive filmmaker Michael Moore’s 2018 documentary Fahrenheit 11/9, which chronicled the 2016 presidential election and the first two years of Trump’s presidency.
Pak first broke the news that The Apprentice had signed a distribution deal.
Jake Traylor and Gabe Gutierrez contributed.