SILENCE broken by SILENCE

The Salt Mines

October 1990 •English

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".

Lockedout

April 2020 •Italian

A short documentary about a homeless couple who face the ban on being on the street during 2020 quarantine. Just through their eyes, the two protagonists show us a different Milan, silent and suspended.

The Hotel of Waifs

April 2019 •Turkish

Waifs, homeless, derelicts, almsmen, others, forgettens, outcasts, unwanteds. The Hotel of Waifs; a temporary resting place far from home, an amusement in a pale fun fair, an enthusiastic trip on roundabout ways of soul.

Det nya livet

January 2004 •Swedish

It has been three years since Tom Alandh made the film "Det svåra livet" about homeless drug addict Pia. This film shows what has happened to her since.

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

October 2003 •English

A homeless musician finds meaning in his life when he starts a friendship with dozens of parrots.

Semences : les gardiens de la biodiversité

March 2014 •French

Streetwise

December 1984 •English

This documentary about teenagers living on the streets in Seattle began as a magazine article. The film follows nine teenagers who discuss how they live by panhandling, prostitution, and petty theft.

Life and Death at the Ambassador Hotel

November 1994 •English

1994 at the Ambassador Hotel, 55 Mason Street in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California. From 1978 to 1996, the hotel was managed by Hank Wilson, a San Francisco LGBT activist who made the hotel a model for harm reduction housing. 134 run-down and exhausted rooms populated by homeless men and women, sometimes even children. All of them in urgent need of care, compassion and humanity. Nobly provided by voluntarily working professional health care and social workers staff, various benefactors, volunteers, neighbors, and community contributions.

Crossroads

October 2014 •Belarusian

Valery Liashkevich is a homeless artist who lives at a railway station and for over twenty years has painted pictures in the streets of the town of Gomel in Belarus. For the natives he is no more than a local attraction. For art critics he is a phenomenon worth close attention.

ORCA: A True Story

November 2017 •English

Would you fall in love with a homeless person? Six years after Occupy Wall Street, Jehan is 42 years old and homeless on the streets of New York City. As she works to save money, get an apartment and return to a "normal" life, she decides that she would also like to get married. Would someone willing to put a dollar in her begging bag also be willing to fall in love with her? Can she find true love with a "normal" person?

Home

December 2017 •Polish

The film presents the life and work of two sisters Grażyna and Violetta, who run a center for homeless men. The heart and unconventional approach to their children makes them build a real home together.

Queen Mimi

May 2016 •English

Forced onto the streets in her 50s, Marie found "home" at a Santa Monica laundromat. Taking shelter there for 20 years, Mimi's passion for pink, and living without looking back, has taken her from homelessness to Hollywood's red carpets.

No Country for the Poor

January 2017 •English

What if democracy fails citizens by not serving them all equally? What if inequality becomes the norm and the most vulnerable citizens are left behind with no money, no home, no rights, and no country of their own? In Hungary, the government has slashed social benefits and criminalized homelessness, but a group of activists, homeless and middle class, is confronting authorities to defend social justice and their right to be citizens. After the tragic death of two of its founding members, the group feels that Hungary is growing more hostile and their struggle is more important than ever. Despite all odds, their own community keeps them going—a mini-society with democracy and solidarity at its heart, an island of hope, belonging and dignity in a society gradually shifting the other way.

Lead Me Home

September 2021 •English

Poignant stories of homelessness on the West Coast of the US frame this cinematic portrait of a surging humanitarian crisis.

Forgotten

April 2016 •English

From the glitzy sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard to the urban wasteland of Skid Row, "Forgotten" portrays the cruel reality of being homeless in Los Angeles and how these men and women cope with life on the streets of one of America's largest cities.

Salvation

January 2001 •English

This documentary portrays the front-line street workers who serve the needy under the umbrella of the Salvation Army. Shot in Toronto at Christmastime, the film chronicles the small hopes and tiny victories of life lived below the poverty line and the daily rewards for those who work to serve others.

Seattle is Dying

March 2019 •English

KOMO Anchor Eric Johnson takes an in-depth look at the impact the drug and homelessness problem is having on our city and possible solutions in "Seattle is Dying," a news documentary that aired on KOMO-TV in March, 2019.

Tent City, U.S.A

April 2012 •English

A documentary view of an encampment of homeless people on the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee in the Southern United States.

Neon Fairytales

January 1992 •Bulgarian

The homeless, underground residents at a post-communist train station and their intimate confessions. A film not about misery, but the lust for life and color even at the depths of human despair.

Leva Livet

January 2011 •Swedish

Ten years after documentary filmmaker Tom Alandh started filming homeless drug addict Pia Sjögren, he makes his third and final film about her. Pia was 14 years old when she started smoking cannabis and using drugs. Then it all happened really fast. The heavier drugs, the men who beat, and years of cold nights in basements and attics. Treatment and punishment. Rehabs and prisons. Relapse. Constantly back, at the complete bottom, among shame and guilt. For ten years, Tom Alandh and photographer Björn Henriksson documented Pia's life. Two films were made, this is the third and last film, which shows how she managed to get clean against all odds.