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The Salt Mines

Movie
Audience Score
60
The Salt MinesHistory Vault logoWatch on History Vault
NR 47 minDocumentarySalt Mines + Transformation Collection PosterPart of Salt Mines + Transformation Collection
Explores the lives of Sara, Gigi and Giovanna, three Latino transvestites who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions through prostitution. 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".
StarringRicardoGigiGiovanna
DirectorsSusana AikinCarlos Aparicio

Movie Details

Original Language:English
Production Companies:Frameline, Starfish
Movie Tags:
woman directorprostitutepovertydrug addictionhivhomelesstransvestitesubstance abusesquattercrack cocaine

Salt Mines + Transformation Collection

Released the same year as PARIS IS BURNING, Susana Aikin and Carlos Aparicio’s extraordinary documentary THE SALT MINES focuses on three homeless Lantinx trans women living in a parking lot of old garbage trucks on Manhattan’s West Side. Aikin and Aparicio document the daily life and hardships faced by these women living on the margins of society. Five years later in THE TRANSFORMATION, they reconnected with one of that film’s most engaging subjects, now living as a man in Texas, forced to transition back by an evangelical missionary that offered her much-needed shelter and safety in exchange.