The Salt Mines 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” 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.

Carlos Aparicio & Susana Aikin
1990 47 min. USA