Tangerine
The Film Society of Lincoln Center will welcome independent filmmaker Sean Baker for a spotlight on his work on Thursday, July 9. The day will include back-to-back screenings of Prince of Broadway, Starlet, and a sneak preview of his latest feature, the bombastic and moving Tangerine, which opens here the following day.
A New York native and NYU film graduate, Baker may have a career that's relatively young, but he’s already established a seductive, formidable, and consistent body of work with a signature that is unmistakably his—fly-on-the-wall, guerrilla style, working with micro-budgets and featuring actors who largely improvise. Baker’s always surprising approach to naturalism combined with a knack for selecting and portraying charismatic, transfixing subjects make him one of the most exciting American independent filmmakers working today.
Prince of Broadway
Baker is also co-creator of the cult Fox and IFC hand-puppet series Greg the Bunny and writer/director/producer of its spin-off, the MTV reality show parody series Warren the Ape. In 2009, his films Take Out and Prince of Broadway competed for the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards, and in 2013, he received the Robert Altman Award for Starlet, which focuses on the unlikely friendship between a 21-year-old adult-film actress (played by Dree Hemingway) and an elderly widow in California’s San Fernando Valley. His latest, Tangerine (produced by sibling directors/actors/producers Jay and Mark Duplass), about transgender prostitutes in L.A., was a breakout hit at Sundance earlier this year and was shot entirely on an iPhone 5S in widescreen format.
Tickets to Sean Baker x 3, along with a three-film discount package, will go on sale Thursday, June 25.
Prince of Broadway
Sean Baker, USA, 2008, DCP, 100m
The third feature from fly-on-the-wall filmmaker Sean Baker stars real-life street hustler Prince Adu (who received a consultation credit) as Lucky, a Ghanaian émigré who hawks knockoff merchandise for kindly Armenian crook Levon (Karren Karagulian). His sordid life is turned upside down when an ex-girlfriend entrusts him with their infant son and disappears. Reminiscent of the Dardennes’ L’Enfant, Baker’s film etches a bustling portrait of NYC’s fashion district and the immigrants living off the grid there. This handmade, no-budget film received numerous prizes including Best Dramatic Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and The New York Times observed that “like its subject . . . the movie is sharp, charismatic and so light on its feet we never know which way it will turn.”
Thursday, July 9, 5:00pm
Starlet
Starlet
Sean Baker, USA, 2012, DCP, 103m
Starlet explores the unlikely friendship between 21-year-old adult-film actress Jane (Dree Hemingway) and elderly widow Sadie (Besedka Johnson) after their worlds collide in California's San Fernando Valley. Jane spends her time getting high with her dysfunctional roommates and taking care of her Chihuahua Starlet, while Sadie passes her days alone, tending to her garden. After a confrontation at a yard sale, Jane finds something unexpected in a relic from Sadie’s past. Her curiosity piqued, she tries to befriend the caustic older woman. Secrets emerge as their relationship grows, revealing that nothing is ever as it seems. Baker continues in the naturalistic style of his previous films, capturing the rhythms of everyday life with a rare authenticity. Starlet is at once provocative, haunting, unpredictable, and surprisingly sweet.
Thursday, July 9, 9:20pm (Introduction by Sean Baker)
Tangerine
Sean Baker, USA, 2015, DCP, 88m
Sean Baker’s fifth feature is a frenetic, funny, and often moving work that employs the most contemporary of means—it was shot on the iPhone 5S—to present the story of Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), a transgender hooker back on the streets of Los Angeles following a stint in jail. Seeking to confront her unfaithful boyfriend/pimp (James Ransone), Sin-Dee and fellow sex worker Alexandra (Mya Taylor) tear through Tinseltown against a sonic backdrop of blaring trap music, innocent and not-so-innocent bystanders be damned. Baker’s film is nothing short of innovative in the artistic mileage it gets out of the iPhone 5S’s onboard video camera, yielding colorful and vibrant 16:9 images suffused with energy, movement, and anarchic freedom, cut together with the precision of a vintage CinemaScope blockbuster. A Magnolia Pictures release.
Thursday, July 9, 7:00pm (Q&A with Sean Baker and actors James Ransone and Karren Karagulian)
