The Hindu : International : A red-light saga in the limelight

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 01, 2005

International

International

A red-light saga in the limelight

LOS ANGELES, FEB. 28. Born into Brothels, a documentary that tracks the lives of prostitutes in a red-light district of Kolkata won the Oscars for the Best Documentary Feature today. Accepting the award, Zana Briski, who produced and directed the documentary with Ross Kauffman, said, "We thank the kids. They are watching in Calcutta."

Pitted against Born into Brothels were The Story of the Weeping Camel, Super Size Me, Tupac: Resurrection and Twist of faith.

Briski, a photojournalist, had visited Kolkata with the intention of filming prostitution. She befriended their children and decided to give them cameras to take photos of the world they lived in. The children presented unique and insightful portrayals of their harsh world.

The effort was productive enough to make a documentary. The kids in Born into Brothels took photos with zest and imagination and the result has been described as "a kind of beauty and squalor that depend on each other."

"Prostitution in this district," as one observer put it, "is not a choice but a settled way of life." They met a grandmother, mother and daughter engaged in prostitution, and the granddaughter seemed destined to join them. Puberty seemed to be the age of entry into prostitution.

Briski was determined to get several of the children out of the district and into a boarding school.

She encountered opposition from parents and roadblocks from the Indian bureaucracy.

— PTI

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