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Brothels: Born Into Brothels
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Plot Summary: A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, "Born into Brothels" is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta where their mothers are prostitutes. Zana Briski, a New York-based photojournalist who travelled to India to document the lives of women in the brothels, gives these youngsters cameras and teaches them how to take pictures, leading them to look at their world with new eyes. Together with co-director Ross Kauffman, Briski captures the magical way in which beauty can be found in the most unlikely of places and how a promising future becomes a possibility for children who previously had no future at all. Touching and heartfelt, yet devoid of sentimentality, "Born into Brothels" defies the tear-stained tourist snapshot of the global underbelly. Zana Briski spent years with these children and became a part of their lives. Their photographs are prisms into their souls, rather than anthropological curiosities, and a true testimony to the power of the indelible creative spirit.
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Born Into Brothels is being hailed in the West as the ultimate uplifting film, a "humanitarian" effort by Briski who dared to live amid the squalor. Western critics and audiences are taken up by the British-born photographer's knight-in-shining-armour efforts. Some of the children too are happy she got the award. The film is about the "missionary zeal" with which she tried to save seven kids from their environment in Sonagachi. And from Calcutta, a city ever fascinating to "white" saviours, from Mother Teresa to Dominique Lapierre and now Briski.
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The 2005 Oscar winner for Best Documentary, Born Into Brothels is a remarkable documentary about the transforming influence of art. While documenting the lives of prostitutes in the brothels of Calcutta, India, British-born photojournalist Zana Briski unexpectedly became enthralled with their children. Seizing an opportunity to bring something new to their lives, she befriended the children of Sonagachi (the city's red light district) — starting a photography workshop for them and equipping them with their own cameras. Briski and her co-director, Ross Kaufman, follow the children as they filter their marginalized, forgotten world through the camera lens. Though the beauty of the story is marred by tragedy and heartbreak, this fine documentary is ultimately a testament to the immense power of art, even in the bleakest of environments.
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Born Into Brothels adopts a structural medium that parallels the intricacy of the Indian subculture it depicts. Auntie Zana, as the children call the young, white director, teaches several children how to use cameras and sends them home to photograph the dark, impoverished crowds of Calcutta’s red light district. Local fear of the camera requires young, native apprentices – prostitution is illegal, after all. In addition to technique, she introduces the children to editing and criticism, and incorporates their various reactions to being given significant control over the film's content. Zana intersperses hundreds of these stills through the moving picture to create an overwhelming sense of immediacy and poignancy.
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Anointed by an Oscar and feted on the celebrity circuit, Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman are flying well above the mean streets of Sonagachi, Calcutta's red-light district, where their award-winning documentary Born Into Brothels is set. Briski, in a backless gown, blew a kiss from the Oscar stage across the oceans to the "kids" she said were watching in Calcutta. The big smile heralded the big times for the photographer and her co-director, now armed with the coveted statuette for their entire filmmaking life, thanks to the children and women of the city of joy.
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Working with Briski on making "Born Into Brothels" was an American named Ross Kauffman. Unlike Briski, he doesn't appear on camera in the documentary. However, on the DVD you can see both Kauffman and Briski interviewed by Charlie Rose. You can ... see both filmmakers accepting the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 2005 Academy Awards ceremony.
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Born Into Brothels