[Warning: The following trailer is NSFW.]
Who can forget the incredible film that blew Sundance away this year? Tangerine, directed by Sean Baker, had everybody buzzing at the festival not only because of its original, raw story about two transgender women running around L.A. on Christmas Eve, but also because it was shot entirely on an iPhone 5s.
Back in January, the filmmakers hadn't released a trailer (or much more than a vague synopsis for that matter), but Magnolia uploaded the film's first red band trailer, which gives us a peek inside the world of Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor), two transgender women who are on a mission to find where a cheating pimp is hiding in L.A.
The trailer reveals to us what the audiences at Sundance must've seen when they viewed it first-hand: an engrossingly funny and uniquely piercing narrative. But it also lets us see with out own eyes how DP Radium Cheung and Sean Baker managed to capture such incredible images using a smartphone, a 1.33x Anamorphic Adapter from Moondog Labs, and the FiLMiC Pro app. It puts to bed, once and for all, the assumption that feature films cannot be made with inexpensive, everyday cameras, like the ones you keep in your pocket, or the ones you bought at a flea market for $50.
Tangerine has proven a lot by just existing, but the two most important things:
- A film about a marginalized and often ridiculed community can be successful.
- Filmmaking is indeed for everyone.
Tangerine is set for release on July 10.
