Extra Credit – Born into Brothels

Born Into Brothels is an inspiring look at the transformative journey of some extraordinary children in Calcutta's red light district. The documentary goes into the life of several children whose mothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski, a photographer, gave each of the youngsters a camera and taught them how to take pictures, motivating them to look at their world with new, fresh eyes. Together with Kauffman (a director), Briski captures the magical way in which beauty can be found in the most unlikely of places and how a bright, promising future becomes a possibility for children who previously had no future at all.Briski was a photojournalist documenting the brothels' prostitutes and during this time she became very intrigued by their children, and decided to give them cameras and basic lessons of how to use them. The children's photographs are the main area of this film because it was a way for them to escape from their harsh life and express themselves. But the pictures also point to a larger issue: that art can be a liberating and empowering force. As soon as the children start snapping photos, they discover how to express themselves. The documentary stresses the positive aspects of art, how it “can transform and transcend hard realities by bringing light and life to the most challenging existence.” (Born Into Brothels)

The movie shows the children in a hopelessly ruined adult world, aware that their own time is running out. The girls have it the worst: They know only education will save them from the line and that no school in India will take the children of sex workers. In most cases, their own families are pressuring them to take up prostitution as soon as possible and this just shows what kind of society they are living in. As we studied in this course, women are portrayed as less than men. Here they are only good for one thing and men use them for that. In the film the young boy Gour says, ''I take pictures to show how people in this city live. I want to put across the behavior of men." So we can see that changing a society like that is a big process that starts with changing the ideas men have about women, which will in turn change the ideas some of those women have about themsleves.

It is a touching movie and is the kind of documentary that is about making changes and finding the good in a nasty situation. It even transformed both directors and their subjects, in expected and unexpected ways.