Miss Carbón

Carlita became the first female miner in an Argentinian town where, based on a rigid local superstition, women were banned from entering the region’s main source of income: the coal mine. Considered to be bad luck and a threat to mine stability, women were excluded from all work in the mine, which was strictly reserved for men. As a trans woman, Carlita managed to enter the mine, breaking the system from within and sparking the flame of a revolution.

COMMENTARY
From the true story of Carla Antonella Rodriguez, born thirty-three years ago near Rio Turbio, baptised Carlos Enrique, transgender and a “female miner”. A fighter, for her passions and her rights, capable of subverting rules and traditions. Agustina Macrì is skilled at mixing dramatic passion with moments of levity, kitsch images and a majestic and narrative sense of landscape.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
Trans women don’t “dream” of being women: they are born with a deep certainty about who they are. Their lives become a journey of struggle, a path of transition to become what they always felt they were: women. As a director, my goal was to tell Carlita’s story as a modern fable of resilience. We drew from the town’s religious beliefs and its devotion to Saint Barbara, while also immersing ourselves in a mining-centered aesthetic and culture. I wanted Carlita’s journey to feel like a rite of passage. The story is told from her perspective, and for me, it was essential to capture how she sees everything: her dream of becoming a miner, her relationship with men, pleasure, desire. How she survives a hostile family.