About TANGERINE

“Merry Christmas Eve, bitch.” Tangerine hurls us into the world of trans sex worker Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) as she returns to Santa Monica Boulevard fresh off a 28-day sentence for crimes of the job, and just in time for the holiday. Sin-Dee meets her friend and fellow working girl Alexandra (Mya Taylor) at Donut Time (the epicenter for our film) for a Christmas Eve breakfast consisting of one donut. Alexandra accidentally lets all hell break loose by leaking that Chester, Sin-Dee’s lover and pimp, may or may not have been unfaithful with “real fish” while Sin-Dee was locked up. Now dead broke and on a mission to find Chester, unholy drama is unleashed on anyone in Sin-Dee’s scorned path — while Alexandra is just trying to lay low, get her money, and keep Sin-Dee’s chaos at bay so she can focus on promoting her cabaret performance later that night. Our protagonists guide us through a drug-fueled motel visit, an LA bus ride (complete with a hostage situation), an unforgettable carwash, and a wintry Los Angeles gilded by digital color saturation and December light. Filmmaker Sean Baker (The Florida Project) shows us the hardships and resilience of this community, and the importance of humor and friendship no matter what. Tangerine was famously shot on iPhone cameras and was briefly a poster child for the democratizing potential of “prosumer” digital technologies for independent filmmakers; Baker, a long-time advocate of analog film exhibition, commissioned 35mm prints of Tangerine in 2022, one of which we will be screening for this show.

35mm from Sean Baker

About ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER

CFS invited Sean Baker, director of Tangerine, to pick a movie to join his own on a double bill. He writes:

Almodóvar has been an inspiration in so many ways – his artistry, his audaciousness, his sensitivity, his love of cinema and on and on. I am honored to have my film screen with one of his masterpieces.

A garish and gallant smash-up of Tennessee Williams and All About Eve, Pedro Almodóvar’s All About My Mother is a melodrama of found families, maternal anxiety, and unholy desires. Celia Roth plays a former actress who reconnects with the father of her child after a sudden tragedy, and finds a new community of trans sex workers, nuns, and thespians on the fringes of Barcelona. With All About My Mother, Spain’s queer enfant terrible achieved a new level of international recognition, with Almodóvar picking up the Best Director prize at Cannes, and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. 

35mm from Sony Pictures Classics