A very interesting film about a sliver of the trans community.

| Aug 17, 2023

A triumphant and impactful directorial debut for D. Smith with the staying power of Paris Is Burning, Kokomo City asks us what it means to be at peace with ourselves and what we’re willing to sacrifice to get there.

| Aug 8, 2023

Kokomo City provides a humanizing, inclusive way forward.

| Aug 7, 2023

For all the exaggerated winks in the music choices and provocative shots of beautifully lit buttocks, the film is an open and celebratory space in which the women can tell their stories.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 6, 2023

It’s a vivid portrait that gamely attempts, wherever possible, to ring-fence itself from ideology.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 4, 2023

... A film that is empathetic and revealing, caustically realist but — against all odds — exuberant too.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 4, 2023

An impressively stylish debut, now more vital than ever.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 3, 2023

Smith presents the danger as the cumulative effect of being trans and Black and a sex worker in America... Smith doesn't blanch at the sexual, either in conversation or visuals, but that's exactly the kind of earnestness the topic requires.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 3, 2023

Four transgender sex workers in New York and Georgia talk with great candor and insight about their profession, dreams and lives in D. Smith’s B&W eye opener of a documentary.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 2, 2023

Covers a lot of ground in a relaxed, effortless way.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 1, 2023

A blast of creative freedom.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 28, 2023

This is not a maudlin film; instead it is a movie with heroines who fight tooth and nail for their lives and their self-worth.

| Jul 27, 2023

Filmed in silky black and white, Kokomo City favors images of its heroines primping, posing and lounging languidly while they relate their home truths, but Smith keeps the beauty shots moving with quick asides, animations, neon-yellow screen titles.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 25, 2023

It only gestures toward an exploration of who its male subjects are both because its visual language, as exciting as it is, calls so much attention to itself, subsuming everything else, and because there’s only so much that the men are willing to share.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 23, 2023

The principal participants — Daniella Carter, Dominique Silver, Koko Da Doll and Liyah Mitchell — are an electric bunch, and the diversity of their testimonies propels this worthwhile project into refreshing, uninhibited territory.

| Feb 17, 2023

As a Black and trans filmmaker, Smith refreshingly creates the space for [her subjects] to be provocative, raw and daringly glamorous in her taboo-breaking work filmed in gleaming black-and-white and edited with a fiery spirit.

| Feb 15, 2023

A raucous compilation of charismatic storytellers gathered in the most lively way possible.

| Feb 3, 2023

I hope we see more films from D. Smith soon because this is an assured and confident debut.

| Jan 31, 2023

This doc rocks, using music to set the tempo for its snappy mix of head-turning talking heads, tongue-in-cheek reenactments and outside-the-box supporting visuals.

| Jan 27, 2023

Smith’s music and photography instincts carry the film cinematically, but the real stars of Kokomo City are its honest and dynamic subjects.

| Original Score: A- | Jan 27, 2023