Theatrical Release this Week: The Award Winning ‘Kokomo City’ directed by D. Smith

One of the smaller subsets of a subset of society: sex workers who are black trans women with dicks and the men who love them. This documentary is a raw depiction of the lives of four black trans sex workers as they confront the dichotomy between the black community and themselves.

The penultimate of the street hos, these women on camera are elegant and eloquent. Able to have made small nests that seem safe, though life for such beings is always precarious, these women are further marginalized by the wives of the men who frequent their beds. Rightfully proud of their achievements, having made a decent life from less than nothing and while still remaining underground, these women express themselves as queens of their domains which elevates us as we witness their beauty.

Daniella Carter, D. Smith, Dominique Silver, Koko Da Doll, Liyah Mitchell This is a beautiful documentary about life as very, very few of us will ever know or could ever imagine. When it showed at the Berlinale after its premiere at Sundance, it won the Panorama Audience Award.

The director D. Smith, trans herself, makes her debut with this film but is a veteran of the music industry and a Grammy-nominated producer, singer, and songwriter. As Sundance says: “Smith brings her sonic skills into stunning harmony with a visual style whose grit and brassiness match the energy and spirit she elicits from her participants. Unfiltered, unabashed, and unapologetic, Smith and her subjects offer a refreshing rawness and vulnerability unconcerned with purity and politeness.”

Morning routines and conversations in bed, gossip and real talk. In encounters and interviews, D. Smith portrays four Black trans sex workers in New York and Georgia. The protagonists discuss their lives with relish and without any sugar-coating. The conversations that emerge are deep and passionate reflections on socio-political and social realities as well as perceptive analyses of belonging and identity within the Black community and beyond. The protagonists also tell us about their lovers, friends and families, and how these relationships are marked by taboos and fetishisation, and also by their own desires. This vibrant portrait gives them space for their uninhibited and defiant narratives. Interestingly, as each reaches a level of self-sustenance and comfort, they reflect and begin to imagine their next level of development which will take them beyond earning their livings so precariously as sex workers in a very dangerous milieu. These are the lucky ones, chosen, no doubt by D. Smith because they had reached levels of success and even love, something so many of us miss. International sales agent and U.S. distributor: Magnolia Films. Israel: New Cinema. Spain: Filmin. Scandinavia: NonStop. U.K.: Dogwoof