Kokomo City

Directed, shot, edited and scored by D. Smith, this black and white documentary follows four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York. Its real focus is why entrenched ideas about masculinity and gender roles make being trans so dangerous, particularly within Black communities. The director's own story is inseparable from the film: Smith was a Grammy nominated music producer who worked with artists from Lil Wayne to Billy Porter, and after coming out as trans in 2014 the industry stopped returning her calls and she became homeless. She pitched the project to five directors, all of whom declined, so she made it herself, buying a camera and a vintage lens, shooting without a gaffer or any other crew while homeless, and finding her participants through Instagram and YouTube. It won two awards at Sundance and the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlinale, and holds ninety nine percent on Rotten Tomatoes from seventy six critics. One participant, Koko Da Doll, lived to see the film's festival prizes but not its release, killed in Atlanta in April 2023, and the film is dedicated to her memory. Smith spoke about that pain directly: she had made the film precisely to avoid showing trauma and murder statistics. Who it's for: Viewers who value formal daring in documentary and hearing unspoken lives told directly. Who it's not for: Not for anyone wanting a distanced, institutional documentary, since this is blunt, uncensored and at times hard to sit with.