Screened as part of NZIFF 2015

Tangerine 2015

Directed by Sean Baker Fresh

Shot on iPhone and looking fantastic, Sean Baker’s R-rated comedy storms the streets, doughnut shops, brothels and clubs of West Hollywood as two transgender BFFs hunt down the ‘bitch’ who did them wrong.

Aug 02

The Regent Theatre Dunedin

USA In English
88 minutes DCP

Rent

Director, Editor

Producers

Marcus Cox
,
Karrie Cox
,
Darren Dean
,
Shih-ching Tsou
,
Sean Baker

Screenplay

Sean Baker
,
Chris Bergoch

Photography

Radium Cheung
,
Sean Baker

Costume designer

Shih-ching Tsou

With

Kitana Kiki Rodriguez (Sin-Dee Rella)
,
Mya Taylor (Alexandra)
,
Karren Karagulian (Razmik)
,
Mickey O’Hagan (Dinah)
,
Alla Tumanian (Ashken)
,
James Ransome (Chester)
,
Luiza Nersisyan (Yeya)
,
Arsen Grigoryan (Karo)
,
Ian Edwards (Nash)
,
Scott Krinsky (parsimonious John)
,
Clu Gulager (the Cherokee)
,
Ana Foxxx (Selena)
,
Chelcie Lynn (Madam Jillian)
,
Shih-ching Tsou (Mamasan)

Festivals

Sundance
,
San Francisco 2015

Elsewhere

It’s Christmas Eve in West Hollywood. Two transgender prostitute BFFs talk trash and storm the LA streets in this R-rated comedy of infidelity, retribution and sorely stretched friendship. Their taxi-driving biggest admirer is having a bad night too. Sean Baker (Starlet) shot the entire movie on a souped-up iPhone5S, and the blazing HD hyper-reality of the imagery is a perfect match for the awesome, OTT emotions on display.

“It’s trashy, lurid, and hilariously profane – exploitation in the best, most cinematic sense – but without ever losing the thread of human ache that connects the handful of characters (including two transgender prostitutes, an Armenian cab driver, and his family) to each other. Alexandra (Mya Taylor) accidentally tells Sin-Dee (Kiki Kitana Rodriguez) that her man (and pimp) has been seeing someone else. She goes ballistic, stalking the streets of Los Angeles looking first for him, then the actual woman (a ‘fish’) he’s been seeing. Even among the least-regulated sex workers there’s a code of honor, and ‘this bitch,’ whoever she is, has violated it.

Meanwhile, the cabbie, Razmik (Karren Karagulian, a wonderful Baker regular), is making his rounds on the same streets. Obviously, he and the hookers converge for a confrontation, along with some other characters, including the pimp…

This is what you came here for: something that feels real – and not because the filmmakers are telling you it is, but because the filmmaking has brought pavement and doughnuts and wigs and the smell of crystal meth to life.” — Wesley Morris, Grantland