Three by Sean Baker

Three by Sean Baker

3 Episodes

As his latest film, the Palme d’Or–winning ANORA, continues to garner acclaim, we’re revisiting the early work of Sean Baker, who for more than twenty years has carved out a distinctive place within American independent cinema exploring the lives of characters on the margins of society with a combination of vérité naturalism and kinetic stylistic verve. Deeply compassionate, human portraits of immigrants (TAKE OUT) and sex workers (STARLET) chasing their versions of the American dream, these defiantly DIY transmissions from way outside the Hollywood formula factory show one of our most vital auteurs already in command of his craft.

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Three by Sean Baker
  • Take Out

    Episode 1

    Directed by Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou • 2004 • United States
    Starring Charles Jang, Jeng-Hua Yu, Wang-Thye Lee

    The American dream has rarely seemed so far away as in Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou’s raw, vérité TAKE OUT, an immersion in the life of an undocumented Chinese immigrant struggli...

  • Prince of Broadway

    Episode 2

    Directed by Sean Baker • 2008 • United States
    Starring Prince Adu, Karren Karagulian, Aiden Noesi

    Staking out territory on the cold winter streets of midtown Manhattan, West African immigrant Lucky (Prince Adu) uses the gift of gab and a hustler’s shrewdness to peddle designer knockoffs for Leba...

  • Starlet

    Episode 3

    Directed by Sean Baker • 2012 • United States
    Starring Dree Hemingway, Besedka Johnson, Stella Maeve

    In the sun-saturated San Fernando Valley, adult-film star Jane, a.k.a. Tess Steele (Dree Hemingway), hits the jackpot when she discovers several thousand dollars inside a thermos purchased at an ...