Synopsis Choices

3-LINE SYNOPSIS

In Calcutta's red light district appear a group of unforgettable children. Feisty, courageous and wickedly funny, these children of prostitutes embark on a transformational journey with photographer Zana Briski, who teaches them to photograph their own lives.

PROGRAMMING DESCRIPTORS

FORMS: Documentary
GENRES: Human Rights
NICHES: Asian, Asian American, Third World, Women, Youth/Teen, Children

FOREIGN TITLES

ENGLISH: BORN INTO BROTHELS
FRENCH: NES DANS LE BORDEL

125-WORD SYNOPSIS

In Calcutta's red light district appear a group of unforgettable children. Feisty, resilient and wickedly funny - they are the children of prostitutes. Trying to evade a doomed future, they embark on a transformational journey with New York based photographer Zana Briski, who teaches them photography. This humorous and heartfelt story portrays the power of art and the courage of those willing to change their own lives.

250-WORD SYNOPSIS

The most stigmatized people in Calcutta's red light district, are not the prostitutes, but their children. In the face of abject poverty, abuse, and despair, these kids have little possibility of escaping their mother's fate or for creating another type of life.

In Born into Brothels, directors Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman chronicle the amazing transformation of the children they come to know in the red light district. Briski, a professional photographer, gives them lessons and cameras, igniting latent sparks of artistic genius that reside in these children who live in the most sordid and seemingly hopeless world. The photographs taken by the children are not merely examples of remarkable observation and talent; they reflect something much larger, morally encouraging, and even politically volatile: art as an immensely liberating and empowering force.

Devoid of sentimentality, Born into Brothels defies the typical tear-stained tourist snapshot of the global underbelly. Briski spends years with these kids and becomes part of their lives. Their photographs are prisms into their souls, rather than anthropological curiosities or primitive imagery, and a true testimony of the power of the indelible creative spirit.

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