New film takes a classic Hollywood narrative and applies it to transgender sex workers

A new feature film sweeping the festival circuit brings the tumultuous lives of two transgender sex workers to the big screen.

“Tangerine,” which was a Sundance favorite before its public release, dives into the heated world of gender politics and the gritty underbelly of Los Angeles. The independent film is a 21st century twist on the timeless friends-on-a-quest storyline.

“We just took a really classic Hollywood story structure and turned it on its head,” says “Tangerine” actor James Ransone.

Ransone plays “Chester” — the cheating boyfriend of one of the lead characters, “Sin-dee,” a sex worker who is played by transgender actress Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. Sin-dee’s release from jail takes her on an exciting journey to find Chester, all with the help of her best friend and loyal sidekick, “Alexandra,” who is played by trans actress Mya Taylor.

Critics so far seem to be embracing this film, which was cast with the help of Craigslist, Vine, Instagram, and YouTube.

“We cast in very unconventional ways because we didn't have the money for a casting director,” says Sean Baker, the film’s director.

In addition to using social networks, Baker says he reached out to actors that he had previously worked with, like Ransone, adding that the film team also used “street casting, which is how we found Mya and how we found Kiki.” According to the Associated Press, Baker met the lead actresses at the Los Angeles LGBT Center a few years prior to filming “Tangerine.”

In addition to using unconventional casting methods, this new film was shot entirely on two iPhones, something that initially frightened Ransone.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’ve worked on really big budget stuff, and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I’m shooting on a phone. Where did I make a wrong step in my career?” Ransone says with a chuckle. “But to some degree, ‘Tangerine’ is the promise of what people have been talking about for the last couple of years — the democratization of creativity.”

Baker has embarked on big projects with small budgets before, but none quite like this. Along with the iPhones, the team used an $8.00 editing app to help bring the film together. And Baker’s innovative production and casting styles also carried through to the scripting.

“We call it a ‘scripment’ — have a script and half a treatment,” Baker says. “[‘Tangerine’s’ script] comes in around 70 pages, and sometimes dialogue is fleshed out and sometimes it isn’t. I always encourage my actors to improvise, and I’m lucky enough to have surrounded myself with incredibly talented improvisers.”

Lacking a budget to rent out film sites, Baker planted the scenes directly into the flow of the infamous corner of Los Angeles’ Santa Monica Boulevard and Highland Avenue — an area notorious for its popularity with sex workers.

They filmed around people ordering food in the middle of climactic scenes at Donut Time — the real restaurant and chosen setting of Sin-dee and Alexandra’s get-togethers — all the while remaining nondescript with their iPhone production gear.

“If we can actually control about 70 percent of what's going on, [and] 30 percent is left up in the air for happy accidents, for whatever may come our way,” that’s a good thing, Baker says.

Members of the trans community have come out in support of the film, which paints a frank picture of the daily struggles facing transgender sex workers, and especially trans women of color.

“So far we’ve been getting a lot of love, and this is from everybody, including members of the trans community who have reached out to us, and they’re very appreciative of the film,” Baker says.

Though individuals like Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox have helped bring the transgender narrative mainstream, Ransone says he hopes the film “provokes a conversation” about the realities facing trans sex workers and trans women of color.

“If you look at the data — the statistical data regardless of the story — a lot of black and Latina trans sex workers come from households of median incomes of less than $10,000,” he says. “They’re the fastest growing rate of HIV in this country. Their day-to-day life is pretty harsh because a lot of them want to buy hormones, and they’re very expensive to procure. Because it’s really difficult for them to find jobs based on gender bias, then they have to turn to sex work in order to find hormones.”

“If that makes its way into the conversation, I think we’ve done a very important thing,” Ransone adds.

Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this story.

This story first aired as an interview on PRI's The Takeaway, a public radio program that invites you to be part of the American conversation.