The women of Kokomo City are stars. Four Black trans sex workers given space to speak the truth in a hilarious, jaw-dropping, utterly kinetic documentary. JacobOller's Sundance2023 review:
One of the most exciting non-fiction entries to this year’s Sundance is a radical, on-the-ground pulpit from which four Black trans sex workers talk their shit. Putting transphobia within and without Black culture on blast,raises a curtain to reveal four stars: Daniella Carter, Dominique Silver, Liyah Mitchell and Koko Da Doll. Actually, make that five stars. Filmmaker D.
From the opening anecdote, about a client setting a massive pistol on the bed as he receives head, you understand that these escorts are braver than the troops. Laughing off nightmares like that, running through lists of friends that have been killed by the same men paying them, their resilience forms the sobering foundation of an overwhelmingly entertaining experience. But of course, queer storytellers have always been able to—had to—turn tragedy into exuberant art.
Smith refuses to undersell this seriousness while her aesthetic refuses to bury her subjects’ pop under their oppression: Iflacks anything, it’s certainly not pizzazz. The soundtrack, some of which was provided by Smith, offers up lyrical laughs, as do the score’s sudden shifts and the on-screen subtitles that chronicle its fast-talking, no-holds-barred interviewees.
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