Sean Baker

The 50-year-old New York director graduated in Cinema Studies at New York University, having previously studied non-linear editing at another school. He gained more notoriety from his fifth feature, Tangerine (2015), mainly due to the combination of formal risk (it was filmed using three iPhone 5S smartphones) and the subject, the story of a transsexual prostitute who discovers she is being betrayed by her boyfriend and pimp. In 2008, Sean Baker had already explored, in Prince of Broadway, a story in the same vein as Red Rocket, by portraying a street prostitute who sees his life get complicated when his ex-girlfriend seeks him out to tell him she has his child, whose existence he was unaware of. But it is with The Florida Project that he confirms his talent and ability not only to film with naturalness and vivacity the worlds of those who exist outside the world, but also to capture with an esthetic eye realities that could at first appear unattractive or even ugly.