*We spoke to filmmaker D. Smith about her provocative new documentary “Kokomo City,” winner of the Sundance Film Festival NEXT Innovator Award and the NEXT Audience Award that explores transgender sex work through the lens of four different participants.
“Kokomo City” is executive produced by Emmy-winning writer, producer, actor, and founder, Lena Waithe as well as songwriter, composer, and singer, Stacy Barthe. The project has been compared to the 1990 LGBTQ+ documentary “Paris Is Burning” about ballroom culture in New York City,
“I think it’s a tremendous comparison because Paris Is Burning was so groundbreaking when it happened,” D. Smith recently told CNN, Yahoo reports. “I will never forget the first time I saw it, so for people to compare such a film to what I’ve done with my first film, I’m just blown away by that.”
Liyah Mitchell, another trans woman who appears in the film, said “Kokomo City” is “something to start a movement,” she told CNN.
“There are a younger generation of transgender kids and people coming up that want to see people on TV that look like them. So I feel like this is the perfect opportunity to make us more relatable and to show us in a positive way,” Mitchell added.
One of the transwomen who appears in “Kokomo City” is Koko Da Doll, who was fatally shot in Atlanta in April. Smith didn’t know Koko prior to filming but said it’s been “very tough” losing her.
“When I met Koko she cried within 30 seconds to a minute of us talking,” Smith told CNN. “She put on this whole thing of trying to be so tough and having it together, but she was the sweetest, biggest teddy bear in the whole film and her vulnerability, I was just drawn to it.”
Smith said, “Koko’s passing really created an even higher urgency to tell this story and to release this film.”
EUR also spoke to Smith about Koko’s tragic killing as well as the inspiration behind “Kokomo City” and what she hopes viewers take away from the stories. Watch our exclusive conversation with a two-time Grammy-nominated producer, singer, and songwriter via the clip below.
“Kokomo City” debuted in theaters July 28.
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