Born into Brothels

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Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids
Born into Brothels.jpg
Directed by Zana Briski
Ross Kauffman
Written byZana Briski
Ross Kauffman
Produced byZana Briski
Ross Kauffman
StarringShanti Das
Puja Mukerjee
Avijit Halder
Suchitra
CinematographyZana Briski
Ross Kauffman
Edited byRoss Kauffman
Music byJohn McDowell
Distributed by THINKFilm
HBO
Release dates
17 January 2004 (2004-01-17) (Sundance)
8 December 2005 (2005-12-08)
Running time
85 minutes
CountriesUnited States
India
LanguagesBengali
English
Box office$3.5 million (USA) [1]

Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids is a 2004 Indian-American documentary film about the children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata's red light district. The widely acclaimed film, written and directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, won a string of accolades including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005. [2]

Contents

Plot

Briski, a documentary photographer, went to Kolkata to photograph prostitutes. While there, she befriended their children and offered to teach the children photography to reciprocate being allowed to photograph their mothers. The children were given cameras so they could learn photography and possibly improve their lives. Their photographs depicted a life in the red light district through the eyes of children typically overlooked and sworn off to do chores around the house until they were able to contribute more substantially to the family welfare. Much of their work was used in the film, and the filmmakers recorded the classes as well as daily life in the red light district. The children's work was exhibited, and one boy was even sent to a photography conference in Amsterdam. Briski also recorded her efforts to place the children in boarding schools although many of the children did not end up staying very long in the schools they were placed in. Others, such as Avijit and Kochi, not only went on to continue their education but were graded well.

Aftermath

There is debate about the extent to which the documentary has improved the lives of the children featured in it.[ citation needed ]

The filmmakers claim that the lives of children appearing in Born into Brothels have been transformed by money earned through the sale of photos and a book on them. Ross Kauffman, co-director of the documentary, says that the amount earned is $100,000 (about Rs.4.5 million), which will pay for their tuition and for a school in India for children of prostitutes. Briski has started a non-profit organization to continue this kind of work in other countries, named Kids with Cameras. [3] A film is being made on the life story of a high-profile trio of call girl sisters, Shaveta, Khushboo and Himani, born in one of the brothels of Haryana.

In November 2006, Kids with Cameras provided an update on many of the children's conditions, asserting that they had entered high schools or universities in India and the United States or found employment outside of prostitution[ citation needed ]. Kids with Cameras continues to work toward improving the lives of children from the Calcutta red light district with the plan to build a Hope House. [4] Updates for 2010 and 2009 were also published. [5] [6]

In 2004, REACT to FILM organized a screening for Born into Brothels at the SoHo House in Manhattan, NY. In 2010, the film's director, Zana Briski, joined the advisory board of REACT to FILM. [7]

Criticisms

The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a prostitutes' organization active in Sonagachi, has criticized the film for presenting the children's parents as abusive and for ignoring the prostitutes' efforts to provide education programs and career building activities for their children. [8] In addition, the film has been criticized in India for perceived racist stereotyping, and has also been viewed as exploiting the children for the purposes of Indophobic propaganda in the West. [9] A review in Frontline, India's national magazine, summarized this criticism, remarking:

IF Born Into Brothels were remade as an adventure-thriller in the tradition of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , its posters might read: "New York film-maker Zana Briski sallies forth among the natives to save souls. [9]

Some critics joined the Sonagachi prostitute-advocacy groups in condemning the film for exploitation of the plight of the prostitutes for profit. [9] Other criticisms were raised about "ethical and stylistic" problems, by Partha Banerjee, interpreter between the filmmakers and the children. [10]

Reception

Critical response

Born into Brothels has an approval rating of 95% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 108 reviews, and an average rating of 7.83/10. The website's critical consensus states, "A powerful and uplifting documentary". [11] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [12]

Awards

Nominations

Preservation

Born into Brothels was preserved and restored by the Academy Film Archive and the UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with the Sundance Institute from a D5, a DigiBeta, a 35mm print and a Magneto Optical Disk. Restoration funding provided by the Sundance Institute and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The restoration had its U.S. West Coast premiere at the UCLA Festival of Preservation in 2022. [15]

Related Research Articles

Kamathipura is a neighbourhood in Mumbai, India known for prostitution. It was first settled after 1795 with the construction of causeways that connected the erstwhile seven islands of Mumbai. Initially known as Lal Bazaar, it got its name from the Kamathis (workers) of other areas of the country, who were labourers on construction sites. Due to tough police crackdowns, in the late 1990s with the rise of AIDS and government's redevelopment policy that helped sex workers to move out of the profession and subsequently out of Kamathipura, the number of sex workers in the area has dwindled. In 1992, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) recorded there were 45,000 sex workers here which was reduced to 1,600 in 2009 and 500 in 2018. Many sex workers have migrated to other areas in Maharashtra with real estate developers taking over the high-priced real estate. In 2018 the Maharashtra government sought tenders to demolish and redevelop the area.

Shivdaspur is a census town and a red light district in Varanasi in eastern Uttar Pradesh in India. It resides on periphery of Varanasi city, surrounded by Lahartara, Manduadih.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2006 Sundance Film Festival</span>

The 2006 Sundance Film Festival was held in Utah from January 19, to January 29, 2006. It was held in Park City, with screenings in Salt Lake City; Ogden; and the Sundance Resort. It was the 22nd iteration of the Sundance Film Festival, and the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Sundance Institute. The opening night film was Friends with Money; the closing night film was Alpha Dog.

Sonagachi is a neighbourhood in Kolkata, India, located in North Kolkata near the intersection of Jatindra Mohan Avenue with Beadon Street and Sovabazar, about one kilometer north of the Marble Palace area. Sonagachi is among the largest red-light districts in Asia with several hundred multi-storey brothels residing more than 16,000 commercial sex workers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prostitution in India</span>

Prostitution is legal in India, but a number of related activities including soliciting, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, prostitution in a hotel, child prostitution, pimping and pandering are illegal. There are, however, many brothels illegally operating in Indian cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, and Chennai. UNAIDS estimate there were 657,829 prostitutes in the country as of 2016. Other unofficial estimates have calculated India has roughly 3–10 million prostitutes. India is widely regarded as having one of the world's largest commercial sex industry. It has emerged as a global hub of sex tourism, attracting sex tourists from wealthy countries. The sex industry in India is a multi-billion dollar one, and one of the fastest growing.

Sanlaap is an Indian feminist non-governmental organisation, established by Indrani Sinha in 1987 in Calcutta. Based in Calcutta, the group aims to protect the human rights of women and girls. Sanlaap is a developmental organisation that works towards correction of social imbalances which present themselves as gender injustice and violence against women and children. The primary work is focused against trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and forced prostitution. As part of its work, the group starts shops to train girls to make a living and foster their independence.

The All Bengal Women's Union was started in the 1932, when a group of women in West Bengal formed a cadre of like-minded women to help their helpless, exploited and victimized fellow women.

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Moni Nag was an Indian anthropologist specialising in the politics of sexuality.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee</span> Nonprofit organization in Calcutta, India

The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, or simply Durbar, is a collective of 65,000 sex workers in West Bengal. Established on 15 February 1992, in Sonagachi, the largest red-light district in Kolkata, West Bengal, India with estimated 11,000 sex workers, Durbar has been working on women's rights and sex workers' rights advocacy, anti-human trafficking and HIV/AIDS prevention. The Durbar states that its aims are the challenging and altering of the barriers that form the everyday reality of sex workers' lives as they relate to their poverty or their ostracism. Durbar runs 51 free clinics for sex workers across West Bengal, with support from organisations such as the Ford Foundation and the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), who also help Durbar in its initiatives like networking, rights protection and creating alternative livelihood for sex workers.

Prostitution in Kolkata is present in different forms and Kolkata's sex industry is one of the largest in Asia. Prostitution may be brothel-based or non-brothel based as in the case of call girls. India is regarded as having one of the largest commercial sex trades globally. Kolkata has many red-light districts, out of which Sonagachi is the largest red-light district in Asia with more than 50,000 commercial sex workers.

G.B. Road,Garstin Bastion Road, is a road running from Ajmeri Gate to Lahori Gate in Delhi, India. It is a large red-light district. It has several hundred multi-storey brothels and there are estimated to be over 1,000 sex workers. It is lined with two or three-storey buildings that have shops on ground floor. About twenty of these buildings have about 100 brothels on the first floor that open at night after the shops at ground level close. It is the biggest red light area in Delhi.

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References

  1. "Born Into Brothels (2004)". Box Office Mojo . 14 July 2005. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
  2. "Born into Brothels". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . 2007. Archived from the original on 28 December 2007. Retrieved 23 November 2008.
  3. "Kids with Cameras". www.hotels-rajasthan.com.
  4. "Kids with Cameras". www.hotels-rajasthan.com. Archived from the original on 22 September 2008.
  5. "Update on the Kids of Calcutta". Kids with Cameras. July 2010. Archived from the original on 7 October 2011.
  6. "Update on the Kids of Calcutta". Kids with Cameras. April 2009. Archived from the original on 23 April 2015.
  7. "React to Film". Ninunina.com. Archived from the original on 26 April 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  8. "Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee- Education". durbar.org. Archived from the original on 3 September 2013. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  9. 1 2 3 Swami, Praveen (2005). "A missionary enterprise". www.frontline.in. Archived from the original on 16 June 2014. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  10. 1 2 "Kolkata connection at the Oscars". Yahoo! News . 3 March 2005. Archived from the original on 3 March 2005. Retrieved 18 January 2009.
  11. "Born Into Brothels". Rotten Tomatoes .
  12. "Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids". Metacritic .
  13. "Cleveland awards Born into Brothels". filmfestivals.com. 25 April 2004. Retrieved 13 August 2023.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 "Born Into Brothels". filmsalescorp.com. Retrieved 13 August 2023.
  15. "Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids | UCLA Film & Television Archive". cinema.ucla.edu. Retrieved 24 October 2022.