Born Into Brothels

I watched the 2004 Academy Award winning documentary Born Into Brothels last night. Yes, I know I’m about five years late with this, but thanks to Netflix I have been watching a ton of movies I should have seen a long time ago–As well as some movies I wish I never came across that left me wondering how they managed to get funding to make it–But that’s what you get when a company tries to cater to everyone–They also cater to people with sucky taste in movies.

Born Into Brothels is a chilling documentary that brings you right into the red light district of Calcutta, India. But instead of its focus being on the lives of sex workers, it brings you into the lives of the children who were born into the red light district; the girls who are being bred to take after their mothers and grandmothers as prostitutes and the boys whose lives won’t be much better. Photojournalist Zana Briski lived in Calcutta for several years and teamed up with Ross Kauffman to make this film. Although the people of the city being enraged over having their pictures taken, or worse, the women being “found out” for being sex workers, Briski found that the children of the red light district were intrigued by the camera; and so she gave a group of eight children ranging in age from 10 to 14 cameras to take pictures of their own with. She also met with the children to teach them more about how to use the camera and how to get the best results when taking pictures of their subjects.

Throughout the documentary, we sit in on the children’s lessons with Briski and we see their creativity soar and their self confidence rises just by being given the chance to experiment with a form of art. Though she has made a tremendous effort to bring art into the lives of these children, Briski knows that there is so much more to be done, saying that without her help, these kids are doomed to fall into the same life of their parents. Lives of prostitution, poverty, and nothing else. Because these kids yearn for a life outside of the red light district, she begins to take measures to help them escape that life and searches for boarding schools that will accept children born to sex workers; but she finds that very few will.

After finding boarding schools that will accept the red light kids, Briski takes the measures to enroll these children into the programs she has found. The filmmakers were extremely respectful of the children’s wishes, they made their own decisions whether or not to attend the boarding schools and by the end of the movie, after filling out endless forms for the children and also ensuring that none of them were HIV-positive, the children did decide to attend the schools and to escape life in the red light district. They were also given the opportunity to travel when their photographs were shown at an art gallery.

By the end of the movie I was full of more questions than I was given answers to. We were caught up on the lives of the children up to the point of when the film came out and most of the children either dropped out of the boarding school they enrolled in or were taken out of school by their parents. I wanted to know what happened to them; if they were taken out of school to follow in the footsteps of the females who came before them and now working as prostitutes to provide for their families. If photography is still a part of their world and if they are still being encouraged to pursue art.

Overall, Born Into Brothels is heartbreaking, especially knowing that most of the children did not get to receive an education, as all of them had seemed overjoyed by the opportunity to do so. However, this is one of the best documentaries that I have seen.

For more information on Born Into Brothels, check out Kids with Cameras for a bio on each of the children, their photographs, and more about the film and you can also purchase the book Born Into Brothels, a book of photographs taken by the children of Calcutta.