TANGERINE ***

Sean Baker's 2015 film "Tangerine" is an absolute gem. It's fiction but it could be fact as we get a glimpse of the seamier side of LA on Christmas Eve as Baker follows a couple of transgender hookers aound, one of whom is looking for her unfaithful boyfriend. Then there's the Armenian cabdriver just looking for what, in less enlightened times, might have been called, 'a chick with a dick'. It's funny but mostly it's sad and, as one of the hookers, has in Mya Taylor, a real find. It's not an easy watch but it established Baker as a director of considerable promise, a promise effortlessly fulfilled with "The Florida Project", making him one of the most exciting talents in the independent section right now.