Four black, transgender sex workers frankly talk about the intimate and taboo details of their work while providing pithy cultural critiques. It explores themes of gender, desire, and violence as it fully lives into the descriptions of “unfiltered, unabashed, and unapologetic” with an authentic tone of “refreshing rawness and vulnerability unconcerned with purity and politeness.” In this episode, we unpack KOKOMO CITY by D. Smith, which took home both the NEXT Innovator Award and Audience Award for NEXT.
Sundance 2023 Section: NEXT
Distribution: Magnolia, Theatrical Release on July 28, 2023, Premium Video on Demand on August 15, 2023, Streaming on Paramount+ on February 2, 2024
From the Sundance website: 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 the every day 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.
Music Credit: spacedust by airtone
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:13.501] Kent Bye: Hello, my name is Kent Bye. And I'm Wonder Bright. And welcome to Story All the Way Down, where we're continuing our series of looking at the Sundance documentaries from 2023. Today's episode is about Kokomo City by Dee Smith. So this was in the Next section, and it actually won the Next Innovator Award. It also won the Audience Award of Next, and it was also picked up for distribution by Magnolia. So this is a film that features the stories and testimony from four Black transgender sex workers based in New York and Georgia. And it intercuts their testimony with a bit of like a music video stylized like recreations. And just generally, it felt like the influence of a music video, the way that was cut and edited is super sharp and snappy. The director, Dee Smith, actually is coming from the music industry. You know, it's a Grimey nominated producer, singer, and songwriter. After she transitioned, all of her work dried up and she went broke and then basically turned to making this documentary. So this film had a lot of really amazing stories that are woven behind it. We talked about The Stroll, which was about transgender sex workers of color in the New York City's meatpacking district, but it was more about the larger dynamics of that place and time and the women. This is more of like opening up the doors and hearing a little bit more about what actually happens with some of the sexual interactions that these women have had and the degree to which that they're under this taboo that people just don't talk about. So they open up that doors and you get to talk about all these things that have up to this point not really been discussed publicly so much. I want to just read this synopsis description because I think it also captures the feel of this film. It's shot in striking black and white. The boldness, the facts of these women's lives and the earthquaking frankness they share complicate this enterprise, colliding the everyday with the cutting social commentary and the excavation of long dormant truths. sharing reflections of naughty 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. So yeah, with that, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts of Kokomo City.
[00:02:37.527] Wonder Bright: Yeah, I think that synopsis right there does the film justice because it was one of the most striking things about the film that it was in black and white. And it's not just the facts of the stories that are being told, it's the women themselves. They're just so colorful and vibrant and striking and all the things that, you know, we associate with technicolor. when color came on the screen in cinema history is this moment where things came into color. And so I really love Dee Smith's choice to paint this picture using black and white tones. And it creates this portrait session vibe to the way that we're being asked to listen to these women. hear their stories in a way that allows us to focus with a kind of granularity on what they're saying. And also because black and white evokes a past recollection, as if it's something that we can have perspective on. It just sort of invokes a different kind of quality. I don't think we watched any other black and white films, did we?
[00:03:46.975] Kent Bye: I don't think so.
[00:03:48.550] Wonder Bright: Yeah, it really kind of stuck out for that reason. I think that synopsis just is like a really great encapsulation of it because it is not dry. It isn't distant. It isn't in the past. It's vibrant. It feels like it's from the future. And I want to visit their planet. And then, you know, spoiler alert, I'm here. It's happening right now. So it was a really wonderful invitation to have a different perspective on this world.
[00:04:19.491] Kent Bye: Yeah. And, you know, the heart of the film are the testimonies from these four black transgender sex workers and intercut between them are kind of like these whimsical recreations or ways of illustrating different things and, you know, sound effects that are very playful as well. But also they do feature some other men that are either dating some of the transgender women featured in the film or clients commenting generally about Black culture and the different taboos or homophobia that have to be fought against. Again, there's also another featured player named Lo, who's a music producer who is reckoning with his own journey of being trans attracted and his arc of whether or not he's going to start to actually date someone who's transgender. And so you have these different vectors of getting information about trans women and the type of sex work that they're doing, opening it up behind the scenes and getting a little bit more of the specifics and the details and talking about things that I haven't heard anyone else really talk about before. And I think that was part of what they're saying here in the description and also in Dee Smith, saying that this is a whole phenomena, no one's talking about it, let's talk about it. And I think this film is actually going into these areas and it's from this marginalized perspective of black transgender sex workers. They have a certain intersectionality that they have very interesting reflections on black culture and just social commentary in general that I found really quite compelling as they were riffing off these really deep, profound reflections about the nature of humanity, but from this very specific situated knowledge.
[00:06:03.682] Wonder Bright: Right. Well, and this was one of my favorite features of this film is that we do hear from the men who are trans attracted. This is something that we didn't get in the stroll for obvious reasons. The stroll is really about this oral history of a time and a place. And so The transgender black sex workers that are talking in that film, you know, what they're talking about is through memory and they're also an older generation. So in Kokomo City, we're talking to younger women who are, for whom these experiences are a little more fresh. and even ongoing. And the fact that we're also getting to hear from men who are willing and able to, like, sit there and have their story of it is also something that I don't imagine any of the clients of the women that we meet in the stroll would necessarily be so available or that they'd be able to find them since this is, you know, a film that's covering a past history. And you're talking about a very particular intersection of the transgender black sex workers that I was so excited to see on screen because they're the only ones that have that knowledge. It's situated knowledge and it's hidden from the rest of the world. And there's this whole conversation that we could be having about male desire and identity that we're not having because nobody knows it's happening except for the people that are living at the margins of so much violence and animosity in our culture that this is the place that these men feel free to actually express themselves in, you know, whatever ways it's showing up. So this was something I would love to know. how Dee found these men and how they came to be comfortable on camera having this conversation. There's one conversation that occurs between three guys that are sitting in a car and is very much in the vein of men arriving at a street corner to pick up a sex worker. It has that feel to it. I didn't, obviously I'm sure like much of it was staged and I would love to know her thought process, like how she constructed it, how she found these men, like who they are. I just, I want to know more, but like, that's a big part of the film is like, yeah, this is just the tip folks. Like there's a whole world out there of people and experiences that you have no idea of. This film excites me. Like, I just think it's exciting. There's like just this hint of like universes of ways of thinking about sex and gender and humanity that these women are talking about and bringing forth and doing so with such confidence and assurity because they really know what they're talking about. They have been experiencing it firsthand in a way that Like this isn't something that can be taught intellectually. It's something that comes from a first person lived experience, this experience of meeting an amount of men who have desires that they can't share elsewhere in the world. And some of the ways that these women deconstruct that experience and why they're the recipient of it. I mean, there's one young woman in particular I just really want to like I will be following her as long as I can. Her name is Daniela Carter. And when she's speaking, I'm like, is she a priestess? Is she a lawyer? Is this church? Is this a courtroom? Is this a poetry stage? Is this a lecture? in higher education. I mean, her capacity to explain her circumstances and how she contextualizes them within our culture and our cultures is really profound. When she was on the screen, I just could not take my eyes off her.
[00:10:23.586] Kent Bye: Yeah, she was definitely one that also really resonated with me. And there is this capacity to share the depth of an individual experience, but yet be reflecting upon a larger aspect of the culture, that social commentary that comes from that direct first person embodied experience that is this deeper truth that I felt like was so valuable to get those slices of perspective. and really reflections on the larger culture. And also this dynamic between the shame and violence that happens for transgender sex workers who have to deal with the threat of being attacked, murdered, sexual assault. I mean, there's so many different layers of how what they're doing is fundamentally not safe, and yet they still have to navigate ways to protect themselves. And that's a whole other dimension of this as a story. And also just this reflection of sexuality, whether or not if you sleep with a transgender woman, does that make you gay, this underlying homophobia and transphobia that is in the culture at large. And, you know, there's a reflection of what does it matter who you're having sex with? That was also mentioned in It's Only Life After All, where Amy Rae is reflecting on how people were always speculating as to whether or not she had ever had a relationship with Emily Saliers. She's like, look, it doesn't matter, but yet she still feels compelled to question it about other people and other bands. Despite the fact that she sees that it doesn't matter, she herself is still succumbing to that. I think in some ways, there's this dimension of knowing someone's sexual orientation. In some ways, it's a part of the identity that you can understand the types of systemic oppressions that they've had to live through. So it matters on that front, but there's a whole other layer that it shouldn't matter and it doesn't matter. And whatever you do with your private life should be whatever you want to do. And there is like this amount of reflection where everybody's worried about that in terms of how they get labeled or their identity. And one of the transgender sex workers is like, look, at the end of the day, everybody just wants to sleep with each other. And so if you just realize that, then all these other labels and everything else just have this extra layer of complication. So I feel like there's this authentic transmission of these deeper truths that are being transmitted throughout the course of this film. And I think it was so richly packed in and edited and woven together with this music video vibe. went into a lot of really interesting places. And I think it's like a really well-deserved audience award, as well as the next innovator award. It got both of those awards in the next category. So, it's kind of like the fusion of all these different techniques, but also giving voice to these perspectives that really haven't been expressed in such a dynamic way that was really fun to watch. And I'm glad that it was able to be so well-received. I think it actually also made the list of the best documentaries by the critics, the survey from IndieWire, it was actually number four of like all the 40 plus documentaries. And so, yeah, it was definitely a standout in terms of something that was really resonating with both the audiences and the critics here at Sundance this year.
[00:13:37.491] Wonder Bright: And here in our own personal Sundance. Festival as well. Yeah, it really resonated with me. And I think one of the things that I really appreciated about the film is I think there's a tendency in our culture when we hear transgender black sex workers or coal mining or indigenous or white feminist or lesbian musicians. The thing about these labels is, to the extent that you might be sympathetic to someone who bears that label, it's an identifier that allows you to identify. with, right? And then to the extent that it isn't something that you're familiar with, it operates as a space of like, well, that's not about me, I'm not interested in that topic, etc, etc, etc. And this is one of those films where, like, yeah, on the face of it, those are the facts of what this film is about. And what is so I mean, I think we could say this about a lot of the films that we watched, including ones that along the themes that I've just listed. And this film in particular, because it's talking about those intersections of gender and femininity and masculinity, and what do they actually mean and the way that it talks about it? Because we're not actually talking only to the transgender sex workers. We're also talking to their potential clients, their boyfriends. we're hearing this deep questioning around what those things even mean. What are those labels, right? Not that they're not useful signifiers. It's just that, where do they need to be shaken up a little bit? Where do we need to break them apart? Where do we need to investigate? You know, like, as an astrologer, I am part of a movement of really like, looking at the ways in which we've used astrological symbols like Venus and Mars to identify sex and gender and try and deconstruct it. And as far as I'm concerned, this film should be assigned homework for every single astrologer who thinks that there's no reason to do that, because this is a living, breathing proof for me of the rich, vibrant tapestry of desire and longing and belonging that exists within the human consciousness. And I feel so much more connected to my own humanity through experiencing the stories of these women and the way that they're sharing them.
[00:16:26.044] Kent Bye: Yeah. So I guess as we start to wrap up, some of the things that I'm bearing witness to are the full cast and crew of the four transgender sex workers that are featured here in this piece by Dee Smith, Daniella Carter, Coco Dada, Leah Mitchell, and Dominique Silver. Each of them have their own insights and take, you know, their own personality that I think comes through as you watch the piece, you know, their character and their perspective on a lot of things. I particularly resonated with a lot of what Daniela Carter was saying, because I think she was really bringing in this larger systemic cultural reflection and critique that is really pithy. And yeah, like you said, she gets onto this like, transmission of these deeper truths that she's speaking from. And yeah, and also Dee Smith did a really great job of creating a safe space for these types of conversations to happen and to weave them all together. I feel like it was a transmission of deeper insights of these perspectives. Trans transmission, if you will.
[00:17:27.930] Wonder Bright: I had to say it. Sorry. It was right there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, bravo. It is a really fun, enlivening jolt of adrenaline. It's a beautiful, beautiful piece of work. I'm going to be recommending this to a lot of people. And I just want to bear witness to the stories of these four women as well. Daniela Carter, Coco Dahl, Leah Mitchell, Dominique Silver. Thank you so much for sharing your stories with us.
[00:18:03.854] Kent Bye: Yeah. So that was Kokomo City by Dee Smith. And it actually won the Next Innovator Award. It also won the Audience Award of Next, and it was also picked up for distribution by Magnolia. So thanks again for joining us on Story All the Way Down. To learn more about this film or podcast, you can visit storyallthewaydown.com. There you'll find some show notes, more information about the podcast and opportunities to support what we're doing. Thanks for joining us.
