Title: Kokomo City
Release Date: July 28, 2023
Director: D. Smith
Production Company: Couch Potatoe Pictures | Hillman Grad Productions
Summary/Review:
This documentary focuses on four Black transgender women who work as sex workers in New York City and Atlanta. In their interviews the film’s subjects are frank in their discussion of their career choices and personal aspects of their lives. There’s also profound intersectional analysis of their experience of racism, sexism, and transphobia, especially within the Black community. Director D. Smith also interviews Black men who are attracted to trans men and are clients of the sex workers. The movie uses highly-stylized black and white cinematography that lends a dream-like quality to the film. The film’s title refers to Kokomo Arnold whose 1935 song “Sissy Man Blues” appears in the movie’s excellent soundtrack.
Rating: ****
Panorama of the Mountains 