EXCLUSIVE: D. Smith, the filmmaker best known for directing and producing the award-winning documentary Kokomo City, has signed with Amplified for management.
Premiering at Sundance, where it won the NEXT Innovator and Audience Award, Kokomo City offers an unfiltered and intimate portrayal of four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York City. Smith’s feature directorial debut also received the Audience Award in the Panorama Documentary section of the Berlinale and two Cinema Eye Honors, as well as nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards, the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, and the DGA Awards.
At Amplified, Smith is reunited with manager Bill Butler, who was a producer on the documentary, released by Magnolia Pictures.
In addition to her film work, Smith is a two-time Grammy-nominated record producer, singer and songwriter who produced and is featured on “Shoot Me Down” from Lil Wayne’s 8x platinum album Tha Carter III. She also wrote and produced the #1 Billboard dance single “Love Yourself” by Billy Porter (released by The Butler Music Co.) and is believed to have made history with VH1’s Love & Hip Hop as the first trans woman cast on a primetime unscripted series.
Amplified is a management and production company founded last year by longtime Industry Entertainment managers Adam Levine, Brandy Rivers and Michael Hepburn, which works with clients across film, television, and theatre. Butler and Michelle Kittrell, also alums of Industry, departed that company to head up Amplified’s New York office months later. Other notable clients include Porter, Calista Flockhart, Dagmara Dominczyk, Donna Murphy, Victor Garber, Cameron Monaghan, Austin Abrams, Thomas Sadoski, and Robert John Burke, to name just a few.
Smith continues to be represented at CAA.
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