No Money No Honey Faces Harsh Truths

No Money No Honey, which celebrated its world premiere on September 19th at the Camden International Film Festival in coastal Maine, is the sophomore feature documentary of Chilean-born, New York-based filmmaker Nicole Costa. Like this latest collaborative project, her acclaimed debut The Journey of Monalisa (El viaje de Monalisa) centers on a South American-born, nonbinary sex worker in New York City, using their own autobiographical material as a basis. For that 2019 film, it was the 2016 book Never, Ever Ever, Coming Down by Iván Monalisa Ojeda, an undocumented Chilean whom Costa knew from their barely post-Pinochet drama school days in the early 1990s. (Costa also helped get the writing published.) Monalisa’s fierce trans sister Máxima Mauricio, the no-holds-barred star of No Money No Honey whom Costa first encountered in The Journey of Monalisa, was the source of the evocative archival video for both films.

To read my interview with the director and collaborator-star visit The Gay & Lesbian Review.