Preceded by short; additional works to be added. Nestled in the hulks of abandoned NYC garbage trucks, a small group of Latino transvestites have built a putative homestead. Self-described outsiders, they are ostracized by both straight and gay culture, not to mention their immediate familia, the Puerto Rican and Cuban communities. These are the inhabitants of Susana Aiken and Carlos Aparicio's intimately scaled portrait, The Salt Mines (45 mins). The strength of this documentary is the very ambiguity of its subject. Deeply exhausted by the rigors of the streets, these men revel in their marginalized status. Their chosen sexuality may be their undoing, but there is a soulful exhilaration to be felt in the anarchic invention of one's self. Graciela Sanchez's Not Because Fidel Says So (Cuba/USA, 1988, 14 mins) begins with the naive premise that homophobia can't exist in a socialist state. Interviews with Cuban gays, citizen homophobes, and an occasional bureaucrat confirm the existence of intolerance. But is it a legacy of the colonial period, or just the restrictive policies of the State? No one quite owns up to the misdemeanor. -Steve Seid