From the very beginning, Jordan Firstman had faith. 

Club Kid, Firstman’s feature debut as writer-director-star, opens with a flashback to a simpler time, namely 2016. A group of friends pile into an Uber on the way to a party where, crucially, Rihanna hit “Sex With Me” plays on the aux. “[Producers] begged me to shoot alts, and I said, ‘No, I’m not doing it. We will get the song,’ ” remembers Firstman of filming the scene sans rights to the Anti hit, running the risk of losing the opening of his film.

The 34-year-old finished filming at the top of the year and started editing. By the time filmmakers learned that Club Kid would be debuting at the Cannes Film Festival in May, they still hadn’t heard from Rihanna. “There did come a time about three weeks ago, where they’re like, ‘What are we going to do?’ And I was like, ‘Just trust. It will work itself out. I know if Rihanna sees this, she’s gonna gag for it,’ ” says Firstman. “We got it to her, and she did.”

(How did Firstman get Club Kid to the superstar? “God and my publicist, which may be one in the same.”)

In the making of Club Kid, from filming on location in New York during real parties to shooting on film to serving as the writer-director-star, Firstman gave himself a difficult mandate for his first turn as a feature director. But all that faith paid off, and now the film is heading to Cannes for a premiere in the Un Certain Regard section as one of the festival’s most anticipated sales titles.

Firstman is best known for onscreen work, first for his viral Instagram impressions and then supporting turns in films like Sebastián Silva’s Rotting in the Sun and series like I Love LA. But, prior to this, he spent nearly a decade in writers’ rooms for such comedy series as Search Party and Big Mouth, and at film festivals like Sundance and SXSW with his short films.

In 2023, while at the Sundance Film Festival premiering Rotting in the Sun, Firstman came up with the initial kernel of the idea for Club Kid, thinking, “Something with me and a kid would be funny.” At the time, he was in a relationship with a Berliner and enmeshed in the party scene there, all of which started to inform his writing.

The result is a story that follows a past-his-prime party promoter whose life takes a sharp left turn when he discovers he has a 10-year-old son.

Firstman moved out to L.A. when he was 20, selling his first TV show at 24 years old and his second at 28, each of which spent years in development but never got made. He didn’t want Club Kid — which he planned to shoot on film in New York City in real clubs — to suffer the same fate in the traditional studio system. 

So, Firstman went the indie route. Alex Coco, prior to his Oscar win for Sean Baker’s Anora, and Lurker producer Galen Core came on board as producers, with backing coming from Topic Studios, then hot off Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain.

“Jordan’s unique because he’s, technically, a first-time filmmaker, but he’s anything but green. He was coming with a level of experience that was distinct from what you might think of as a first time director,” says Topic’s head of film Ryan Heller.

Four months after landing his financing, Firstman was on set for the first day of his 26-day shoot. 

Club Kid has six separate club scenes, many of which the crew just staged scenes in real parties. “We were granted access to spaces that no one can even get to in life, let alone be filmed. We were let in because I was already there partying, and these are my friends,” says Firstman, adding, “The invitation was not taken for granted.”

It was important to the filmmaker to accurately portray New York party culture.  Most of the extras were “scene kids,” says Firstman.

“I call this a foreign-language film. This new era of party, queer people. It really does feel like we’re speaking in gibberish sometimes.” He adds with a laugh, “I watched a lot of our crew, who were straight men, learn the language.”

Casting director Lucy Bevan was tasked with finding Firstman’s onscreen son. Having just worked on the Harry Potter television series, Bevan had a near-canonical knowledge of tween actors from the U.K. Even before he watched his audition tape, Firstman remembers seeing Reggie Absolom, whose credits include the Apple series Silo and Britbox’s The Other Bennet Sister, and knowing that he was the right choice.

“I was like, ‘That’s him,’ ” remembers Firstman. “I was so nervous before I pressed play [on the tape]. I was like, ‘Please let him be able to act. Please let him be able act.’ ” (He could act.)

Onscreen, Firstman and Absolom’s relationship is awkward at first and then disarmingly endearing. Like their characters, they established their own relationship over the course of filming. Says Firstman, “I don’t really like rehearsals. I get awkward. I was like, ‘You know what, let’s just do it.’ ” 

Club Kid’s stellar supporting cast includes Colleen Camp as a kooky neighbor, Babylon’s Diego Calva as a children’s therapist and a flotilla of breakout queer performers, including Miss Benny and Saturn Risin9.

“After day one, Reggie’s mom said he came home and said, ‘I love the dolls!’ ” says Firstman of Absolom meeting his trans co-stars. “It makes me emotional thinking about it, because this is how you teach kids how to accept people — by introducing them.”

Filming on location in New York City was nonnegotiable for the director, who, with cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra, looked to New York-set films of the ’70s and ’90s for inspiration, particularly Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman and Michelle Pfeiffer-George Clooney starrer One Fine Day. Lots of grit, shot through with glamour. 

Club Kid captures a culture that is rarely seen on film, especially films getting as big of a stage as Cannes. When writing, Firstman wanted the city’s party scene to look lived-in and feel authentic, appearing onscreen as it does in real life.

“These people in it are my friends. I’m critiquing certain aspects, but I’m not taking shots,” says Firstman. “There’s a scene at the end of the movie where I tell one of the party girls, ‘Take care of yourself.’ And she’s like, ‘I always do.’ To me, what I’m saying about the party scene is that there is a moment for it, and you can outgrow it. Or, you can be right for it at the right time. It’s not a condemnation of people who do drugs or like to have fun. This is more about this man who has overstayed his welcome, or never known a different option.”

After nearly a decade in writers’ rooms, years of short films and time as an onscreen breakout, Firstman feels he arrived at his first feature exactly when he was supposed to.

“I knew my taste and I knew what I wanted it to look like,” he says. “I just knew how to do it better.”