The Salt Mines
Frameline • 44m
Directed by Carlos Aparicio, Susana Aikin • Documentary • 1990 • 47 minutes
The Salt Mines explores the lives of Sara, Gigi, and Giovanna, three Latinx transwomen who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions through sex work. They made their temporary home inside broken garbage trucks that the sanitation department keeps next to the salt deposits used in the winter to melt the snow. The three friends share the place known as The Salt Mines with a varied community of homeless people. They talk about their sexual identity, their past, and their dreams. We follow their daily lives day and night until the place is closed and sealed by the city, forcing everyone to disperse, in this groundbreaking 1990 documentary, one of the first to delve into the lives of trans women and sex workers.
Up Next in Frameline
-
A Simple Matter of Justice
Directed by JEB (Joan E. Biren) • Documentary • 1993 • 56 minutes
A powerful and moving piece documenting the LGBTQ+ movement for equality in the early 1990s, A Simple Matter of Justice: The 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation expresses all the emotions o...
-
Thanks to Hank
Directed by Bob Ostertag • Documentary • 2019 • 81 minutes
Thanks to Hank is the inspirational story of Hank Wilson, a true unsung hero of the gay liberation movement and the AIDS epidemic which followed, who lead a life of such extraordinary humility and compassion that it will inspire people f...
-
The Transformation
Directed by Carlos Aparicio, Susana Aikin • Documentary • 1995 • 58 minutes
Carlos Aparicio and Susana Aikin’s The Transformation follows one person’s journey to reconcile their identity, religion, class, and sexual orientation following harrowing news. In the groundbreaking 1990 documentary The...
