EXCLUSIVE: D. Smith’s breakout documentary Kokomo City, a top contender for Oscar recognition, will make its debut on Showtime and Paramount+ on February 2, Deadline can reveal.
The film, which has won awards around the world, will become available for streaming as part of the Paramount+ with Showtime plan first thing Friday, February 2, and will premiere on the Showtime linear platform that night at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Magnolia Pictures released Kokomo City theatrically over the summer, beginning in New York and Los Angeles.
“In the wildly entertaining and refreshingly unfiltered documentary, filmmaker D. Smith passes the mic to four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York City – Daniella Carter, Koko Da Doll, Liyah Mitchell and Dominique Silver – who unapologetically break down the walls of their profession,” notes a release about the film. “Holding nothing back, the film vibrates with energy, sex, challenge and hard-earned wisdom.”
‘Kokomo City’ director D. Smith (L) and the film’s Daniella Carter appear at Outfest in Los Angeles.
Matthew Carey
Smith, a two-time Grammy nominated producer, singer, and songwriter, made her directorial debut with Kokomo City. In addition to directing, she edited and shot the documentary. She also produced the film, along with Harris Doran and Bill Butler. The executive producers are Emmy winner Lena Waithe, Rishi Rajani, Stacy Barthe, and William Melillo.
In an interview for Deadline’s For the Love of Docs series last week, Smith said she found her dynamic leading women by visiting the Instagram accounts of high-profile trans people in Hollywood, and then combing through reactions to their posts.
“I sifted through their comments,” Smith explained. “I found the girls that way, because really my goal was to cast women that look like the [trans] girls that were being killed. Those women never have a platform until it’s too late. So, I wanted to get a deeper inside, intimate conversation and look into that world.”
Magnolia Pictures
Smith publicly revealed her own transition in 2016. She said as a result of coming out, people in the music industry shunned her. “To transition and everything get thrown out of the window — all your credibility, all of your accolades, all of the titles that people give you, it just tears you absolutely into pieces,” Smith told Deadline in August at the time of Kokomo City’s theatrical release in L.A. “I remember some people around the [music] community saying I was going to ruin my career [by coming out]. And I said, ‘Okay. I can’t wait to prove them wrong.’”
Kokomo City won two awards at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where the documentary premiered in the NEXT section. It went on to win the audience award in the Panorama Documentary section of the Berlin Film Festival and recently earned a Best Documentary nomination for the Film Independent Spirit Awards. It is nominated for a leading six awards at the upcoming Cinema Eye Honors and landed five nominations from the Critics Choice Documentary Awards.