Mark Duplass offered to fund a micro-budget film of Sean Baker's before Baker considered Tangerine. After a two year festival run for his previous film, Starlet, and inspired by the independent films he saw while at the New Zealand Film Festival, Baker called up Duplass to see if the offer still stood, and began work on his next film. The film was executive-produced by the Duplass brothers, and produced by Karrie Cox and Marcus Cox with Through Films, Darren Dean and Shih-Ching Tsou.
