Kokomo City

THU, AUG 10 @ 8:20 PM          SUN, AUG 13 @ 7:10 PM

MON, AUG 14 @ 9:20 PM       WED, AUG 16 @ 7:20 PM

Audience Award winner at Sundance and Berlin! “Kokomo City” takes up a seemingly simple mantle—to present the stories of four Black transgender sex workers in New York and Georgia. Shot in striking black and white, the boldness of the facts of these women’s lives and the earthquaking frankness they share complicate this enterprise, colliding with the everyday with cutting social commentary and the excavation of long-dormant truths. Sharing reflections on knotty desire, far-reaching taboo, identification in labor, and gender’s many meanings, these women offer an unapologetic and cutting analysis of Black culture and society at large from a vantage point that is vibrating with energy, sex, challenge, and hard-earned wisdom.

This vital portrait is the daring directorial debut of D. Smith. A veteran of the music industry and a Grammy-nominated producer, singer, and songwriter, 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 smash the trendy standard for authenticity, offering a refreshing rawness and vulnerability unconcerned with purity and politeness.

VIEWER’S GUIDE: DISCUSSIONS OF SEXUAL ABUSE AND TRANSPHOBIC VIOLENCE.