'Anora' might be the movie of the year. Sean Baker hopes it changes some things
abcnews.go.comSean Baker's “Anora” is by wide consensus one of the year’s best films and a best picture contender at the Oscars
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Sean Baker’s interest in the lives of sex workers began with his 2012 drama “Starlet.” For that film, set around the adult film world of San Fernando Valley, Baker spent time listening to the stories of sex workers. Some co-starred in the movie. Many became friends.
“I remember being on set and Radium Cheung, my DP, was like, ‘There’s a whole other movie. And there’s a whole other movie,’” Baker recalls. “I was like, ‘There’s a million stories to be told in this world.’”
Since then, Baker has traversed a wide swath of America in films set everywhere from West Hollywood donut shops to industrial rural Texas. But he has kept the lives of sex workers in focus. The iPhone-shot “Tangerine” (2015) is about a pair of Los Angeles trans sex workers out to avenge a cheating boyfriend. In “The Florida Project” (2017), a single mother turns to sex work to support herself and her daughter in an Orlando motel. “Red Rocket” (2021) comically captures a washed-up porn star.
When his latest film “Anora,” starring Mikey Madison as a Brooklyn exotic dancer who spontaneously marries the son of a Russian oligarch, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, Baker took the moment to speak about chipping away at the stigma of sex work. He dedicated the award to “all sex workers, past, present and future.”
It was a crowning moment for the 53-year-old who has long considered the French festival the pinnacle.
“It was the dream. You’re sort of in an existential crisis after that. I’m still figuring it out, quite honestly,” Baker said in a recent interview. “It’s not about opening doors.
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