For a film about sex work to win an Oscar is rare. For it to win the respect of sex workers is even rarer.

If Sean Baker's "Anora" triumphs at the Academy Awards next Sunday, as predicted by most pundits, it will have achieved both.

"Sean gets sex work. He just does," porn actress and director Casey Calvert tells AFP, as she prepares to film an explicit lesbian scene on a set in the San Fernando Valley.

"Sean is the only working mainstream filmmaker who has the ability to get it right. He's also the only one who cares about getting it right," adds adult film veteran Eli Cross, who is the cinematographer for the day.

Baker's journey to the Oscars began in this valley next to Los Angeles, infamously and accurately dubbed the capital of the US porn industry.

It was here that he shot "Starlet," a micro-budget film about a young adult actress who forms an unlikely friendship with an elderly widow.

Baker's candid portrayal of an industry used to being maligned and sensationalized by Hollywood earned him the friendship of porn workers like Calvert, who later worked as a paid consultant on his film "Red Rocket."

She will be among the many........

© International Business Times