Filmmaker Saturnin Kondratiew joined Chris Gore and Alan Ng on the Film Threat Livecast to talk about his documentary American Troll, whose story is stranger than most scripted movies.
Kondratiew didn’t set out to make a film about a comedian’s court battle. Back in 2018, he wanted to document the world of online trolling — 4chan, Reddit, and every other corner of the internet where guys gather to say the most vile stuff imaginable to each other and mean none of it. But after a year of interviews with random posters who had nothing interesting to say, he realized he was chasing the wrong story. Instead, he found a real case with real consequences: Quebec comedian Mike Ward and the joke that cost him.
Ward had built a bit around Jeremy Gabriel, a boy with a rare genetic disorder who was something of a celebrity in Quebec. The joke, as Kondratiew describes it, wasn’t as cruel as it sounds out of context — Ward was essentially saying the kid was unkillable because his condition, while serious, wasn’t life-threatening. Gabriel’s family didn’t see it that way. They took it to the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal, which ordered Ward to pay $35,000 in damages. The case became a lightning rod for Canada’s free speech debate, and it’s the spine of Kondratiew’s documentary.
“Nah, nobody wants to touch, nobody wants to touch this s**t.”
One detail that surprised even Gore and Ng during the livecast: the joke itself doesn’t appear anywhere in American Troll because it no longer exists online. YouTube has completely scrubbed it. The only trace left in the film is five seconds of B-roll where Kondratiew filmed himself replaying a saved copy on an iPad, just to prove it once existed. Beyond that clip, the joke is gone, and Kondratiew says Ward seems happy to leave it that way.
Getting the film made was its own ordeal. Kondratiew landed Ward as an interview subject around 2020, tracked down Gabriel to get his side of the story, and wrapped every major interview — including a sit-down with author and commentator Gad Saad — by 2022. Even then, the project dragged on. Working solo, Kondratiew kept tinkering with the edit for years before finally locking picture in early 2025, meaning the film took roughly seven years from idea to release. His advice to anyone thinking about making a documentary on their own dime: don’t, unless someone is paying you.
Money was another fight entirely. Kondratiew says he got no government grants or funding support in Canada, and he’s blunt about why: a film like his, tackling a politically loaded free speech case from outside the usual advocacy lens, wasn’t going to win over funding bodies the way a different kind of subject might have. He financed it through credit cards and borrowed money instead. Clearing archival footage for fair use added another layer of expense, since Canada’s fair use standards are even tighter than America’s, and he had to cut material from the film to stay within legal bounds.
“Yeah, yeah, it sucks. I just can tell you it sucks. It f*****g sucks. That’s it.”
The conversation also drifted into where Canada stands on speech more broadly. Kondratiew pointed to Bill C-9, hate speech legislation currently one vote away from becoming law in the House of Commons, as a sign that the country’s already fuzzy protections around expression could tighten further. He compared the trajectory to the United Kingdom, where people have been arrested for social media jokes.
Distribution proved just as difficult as financing. After the usual outlets passed, Kondratiew found a home through Filmhub, which placed the film on multiple platforms. American Troll is now streaming free on Tubi, and more information, including screening details, is available at americantroll.com. Gore also floated the idea of the documentary landing a spot in Film Threat’s own indie film awards, noting that it already qualifies thanks to its positive review on the site.
