Product Description

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 Calcutta's red light district, where there mothers work as prostitutes. Spurred by the kids' facination with her camera, Zana Briski, a New-York-based photographer living in the brothels and documenting life there, decides to teach them photography. As they begin to look at and record their world through new eyes, the kids, who society refused to recognize, awaken for the first time to their own talents and sense of worth. Filmmakers Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski capture the way in which beauty can be found even the seemingly bleakest and most helpless of places, and how art and education can empower children to transform their lives.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46432 in DVD
• Brand: Image Entertainment
• Released on: 2006-05-10
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English, Bengali
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 83 minutes

Amazon.com
Set in Calcutta's notorious red-light district, Born Into Brothels explores the lives of its most vulnerable citizens. Directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, the picture’s eight small subjects shot the still footage themselves. Briski first teaches them how to shoot and edit. The children then put her lessons into practice. They gain confidence as the film proceeds, yet there's always the threat that any of the girls, especially 14-year-old Suchitra, could be forced to "join the line" (work as a prostitute). For most, it's only a matter of time. The boys don't have it much better. Promising photographer Avijit's mother is gone and his father is a drug addict. "Without help," Briski notes, "they're doomed," so she takes matters a step further and tries to get them out of the brothels altogether. Produced for HBO, this heartbreaking, if inspiring film won the 2005 Academy Award for best documentary feature. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

From The New Yorker
Watching Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman's prize-winning documentary, shot in Calcutta's Sonagachi red-light district, where Briski lived, on and off, for years, one is initially held by the sensuousness of the colors and the beauty of the children-the offspring of prostitutes, eight, nine, twelve years old, who are growing up in the district and are surely heading into prostitution themselves. Then the "plot" of the movie kicks in. Briski gives the children cameras and teaches them to take pictures of their surroundings; they gain a sense of themselves, and they master a craft. But will Briski be able to get them out of the brothels (where their parents need them for economic reasons) and into decent schools? One is aware of Briski as a rather aggressive guardian angel from the West, who comes in and tries to save only a few children, but she's hardheaded and effective, and her quest makes sense. The colors remain alluring and the children radiant right to the end. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

David Ansen, NEWSWEEK
"A REMARKABLE AND MOVING STORY ABOUT THE POWER OF ART TO TRANSFORM LIVES."

"UPLIFTING!"

"INSPIRING!"