The Salt Mines
Trans Stories
•
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 Trans Stories
-
Denial
Directed by Derek Hallquist • Documentary • 2017 • 92 minutes
Every day our changing climate pushes us closer to an environmental catastrophe, but for most the problem is easy to ignore. As people we often find it difficult to face change. We'd rather be in denial. David Hallquist, CEO of a Verm...
-
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...
-
Boy I Am
Directed by Sam Feder, Julie Hollar • Documentary • 2006 • 72 minutes
Sam Feder’s first feature Boy I Am, co-directed with Julie Hollar, explores issues rarely touched upon in films portraying trans male subjects. Tackling the extreme feminist view of transitioning as an anti-feminist act that t...
