Documentary photographer Zana Briski journeyed into Calcutta's underworld to photograph the city's prostitutes. In return, she offered to teach the prostitutes' children the basics of photography so that the kids could document their own lives on the streets of one of the world's poorest cities. Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids will entertain fans of documentaries and men and women of patience but unfortunately for those who might expect something more? It's an easy skip but also a film that will bore it's viewers to death. (0/10)

Photographer Zana Briski wants to take pictures of the red light district in Calcutta. She finds resistance from the locals but she befriends several of the kids. She gives them cameras and let them take the pictures. The kids struggle with their family's troubles. The girls face pressure to join "in the line". Avijit is a cocky boy with anger issues. The kids call her Zana Auntie. She struggles through the bureaucratic labyrinth to get the kids their birth certificates, rations, and ultimately an education. Meanwhile, the pictures are sold in western charities to raise funds for the kids.Ultimately, the question is raised if the kids are being helped. I hope the answer is positive. At least, some of them end up going to school. As a documentary, the kids' family drama could be highlighted more. This ends up concentrating more on the pictures. It would be helpful to do a good length of exposition on each child and their family background. Each kid and family should have at least five minutes. Zana seems to be more driven to take the kids on field trips and photographic sessions while pushing the ultimate goal of school. The family drama is normally the main course for a documentary but she's not that kind of a filmmaker. That's not to say the photographs aren't important. It's a good device to get at the issues but it shouldn't be the issue itself.

I would have not seen this documentation, if it would not have been in IMDb Oscar Badge list. It would be a shame, because this documentation is worth to see. I'm not that good in English, please forgive me, but i try to write some words to appreciate their work. It is unbelievable how Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman are taking the challenge to work in such a place. Not only that, they are trying to make the world a little bit better for the children. Hopefully this documentation can make the world better for a lot more. It was a good decision from the Academy to give the Oscar to this Project. The more people see it, the more will think about the world around them.

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved a little by the kids and their circumstances in this story. Born into Brothels serves as sort of a basic litmus test for empathy: if you can't say to yourself 'that could've been me, in some other time or place or by some other stroke of chance or luck or what have you', then you shouldn't go near these movies (or perhaps movies in general). Its heart is squarely in the right place as one-time director Zana Briski (she didn't do anything before or since really, as filmmaking isn't exactly her forte so much as photography) goes into a part of Calcutta where brothels run rampant and there's no police - kids work from the age of whenever the parent (if there even is one) decides so, and school is usually a luxury or a privilege. If there's anything of an arc to the film it's following who may get into one school or another, or if one may get into a photo competition in Amsterdam.I may have skipped over the obvious of the premise - Calcutta kids get cameras and take pictures of their surroundings. Simple enough, and to be sure many of them take wonderful photographs that carry actual artistry and (as noted in the film) attention to composition. I was reminded following these kids a little of the film Hoop Dreams, which also is about kids growing up in poor neighborhoods and who may get the chance to move on with their lives by a combination of luck and hard work and tenacity (or if life doesn't get in the way, which it invariably does).Though it may have been impractical, I wished there was more to this movie than there is (or maybe, in some years time and it hasn't happened yet, the approach of the "Up" series where we see the kids 7/8 years later and so on). The directors take so much time to set up the kids, but it's not like they are very varied; where 'Dreams' had two young people, this has seemingly about 10 or maybe a dozen (I lost count to be honest). They're charming and easy enough to watch - my first thought once the documentary ended is that this is the lightest/fluffiest film about poverty-stricken youth I can remember seeing - but they're not distinctive enough to carry a movie that is so short. With more development or time to see their life stories, there might be something more as far as *narrative* goes.There are conflicts and tragedies, to be sure (one kid's mother is killed by her pimp, and it seems to be just another day in the red light district, again no justice either), and when the kids are seen in the midst of the aggressively-mouthed adults around them there's tension (there's a reason this is Rated-R so be warned if you decide to show this to your kids). But at the end of the day it really is more important as a social document than as a piece of cinema that you MUST see. It may help change how you see certain things with Calcutta - maybe some will come with the impression of the place as being only one way with one group of people, and here it's all about what options people have really, which is a good distinction the movie makes - and there's some nice/pretty photos to look at. Good but not great.