Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids (2004) on Netflix
R20041h 25mBiographyDocumentary
A documentary photographer goes to Sonagachi, Kolkata's red light district, to photograph the women who work there. In exchange for the access, she teaches their children photography.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.1/1019,013 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes95%
Trailer
Plot summary
Children grow up in Sonagachi, the red light district of Kolkata, where their mothers work as prostitutes. A documentary photographer travels there to take pictures of the women, and she becomes friends with their children. In return for being able to photograph the mothers, she offers the children lessons in photography. Cameras are handed out so the children can learn the craft and, possibly, improve their lives. Their pictures show the district through the eyes of children who are usually overlooked and given housework until they can contribute more to the household. The photography classes and the district's daily life are recorded as well.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ross Kauffman, co-director of Born into Brothels, says the film's children earned $100,000 from sales of their photographs and a book, money meant to pay their tuition and fund a school in India for children of sex workers; Zana Briski started the non-profit Kids with Cameras.
- The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a sex workers' organization active in Sonagachi, criticized the film for presenting the children's parents as abusive and for ignoring the sex workers' own education and career programs; critics in India also called the film racist stereotyping and Indophobic propaganda.
Stills
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