Born Into Brothels
When I started university last September, I discovered there was a Photographic Society, so I joined up. One of the things they do, as well as practical workshops, is show films relevant to photography, such as a screening of an Annie Leibowitz documentary. I went to see a film the other night, that I’ve never heard of before, and at first glance, didn’t seem particularly ‘photographic’. Called ‘Born Into Brothels’, it is a documentary film shot in a red light district in Calcutta, India. Photographer, Zana Briski, had spent time there, living amongst the woman in order to gain their trust enough to document their everyday lives and situation, and became friendly with a group of the children living their with their mothers. She decided to teach the children photography, and was pleasantly surprised by the results. The children took to it really well, producing some really amazing results.
I have never seen a more depressing documentary film, and I’ve seen a few. The poverty and destitution these families live in is inconceivable to someone from a relatively wealthy country, the worst of it being that pretty much every single female child there was destined to ‘join the line’; that is, become a prostitute. Zana became heavily involved in trying to get the kids away from this lifestyle, most of them were clever and articulate, but lacked any sort of education. Most local schools would not take them as they were the children of sex workers, and when she eventually managed to secure places for four of the girls at a boarding school it was on the proviso that none of them were HIV positive. Thankfully, none of them were.
Of all the children, one of the most naturally talented seemed to be Avijit. He described what he saw/felt from photographs in such a way that you could really see what he meant. He sounded like he’d been a photographer for years. He was selected to go to Amsterdam as part of a children’s photography event, and the hoops that had to be jumped through to get him a passport were unbelievable. I felt so pleased for him when he eventually made it to the event.
As I said, all very depressing, yet altogether an extremely watchable film. The word ‘enjoyable’ is entirely inappropriate, as it is frequently upsetting, yet I would urge people to watch it. It gives an insight to a world I never even knew existed. I mean, I’m not naive, I know prostitution exists all over the world, but I’ve never realised what it would be like in such a poor country. The women still stand on the street, just like any Western country, but they take clients back to their ‘room’ (their house, basically), and the rest of the family just carries on with their normal life whilst the ‘business transaction’ is going on. The women’s husbands, elderly relatives and children come and go as normal, fetching water, cleaning, cooking, usually only separated from the sex act by a thin curtain. Most of the children are well aware, even at very young ages, exactly what is going on. You can’t feel anything but utterly helpless as the girls talk about how they will end up like their mothers, and some of the young boys say that they don’t want their friends to be forced into the life. Some of the other women living in the buildings were anything but understanding of the prostitute’s situations, frequently verbally abusing both the women and children, even beating the children on occasion. Another thing that struck me was the fact that whilst there were women dressed in what we would recognise as ‘street’ clothes, i.e. the short skirts and high boots, most of the women stuck to the traditional Indian style dress of sari’s and scarves.
There are some glimmers of hope, which I won’t go into as it would spoil the film if you intend to watch it. It’s not a popcorn film, I came away from it feeling a bit empty, yet would watch it again in a heartbeat. One thing I will say is that Zana Briski now runs a charity, Kids With Cameras, in order to try and help the children still in the brothels, although, probably not a good idea to look at the website before you watch the film, as it’s a spoiler of sorts. Go watch it, step outside your comfort zone.
http://kids-with-cameras.org/home/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388789/
