Running the Red Light

[March 23rd, 2005] Zana Briski is no ordinary woman. Living in a rented brothel room in Sonagachi, Calcutta's red light district, off and on for six years, she taught eight neighborhood children the intricacies of photography, started a nonprofit and made a documentary about the experience with her then-boyfriend Ross Kauffman. Last month, her film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Born into Brothels chronicles the lives and photography of eight children whose parents are prostitutes, pimps and drug dealers, providing a rare glimpse into Calcutta's squalid red-light district from the inside. The saturated colors, faces layered with emotion and daily life in the neighborhood become tangible through Briski's eyes. However, the voyeuristic look into this off-the-map, global underbelly isn't seen only through her eyes but through those of the children who live in the brothels.

Worn-out shoes, a filthy plate, and the contents of a spilt garbage bag lie strewn beside a soiled mattress, creating a portrait of a reality most people would care never to see. "I take pictures to show how people in the city live," explains 10-year-old Gour, one of Briski's protégés. "They live in chaos. Nobody lives as filthily in our country as we do."

Gour, like the other children Briski and Kauffman worked with, shows perceptivity beyond his years. "Maybe it's something about going through pain that makes you really aware of certain things and of life around you," said Kauffman during a recent telephone interview. "They've seen a lot, and they understand. They know where they come from, and I think now they know what they're capable of."

Cracks of hope filter through Born into Brothels like the sepia and bright-orange colors that saturate the film. Jaw-dropping cinematography brings the setting gut-wrenchingly to life and manages to nail the finer points of great filmmaking, wherein actual human experiences are revealed. You can almost smell the trash-laden Calcutta streets. You can almost feel the sweltering heat.

On their bikes, in their bedrooms, in the hectic streets, the children take snapshots of everything from pimps going about their day to a candid smile on a sister's face. These photographs-almost accidentally-seem to reflect a world iridescent with unexpected vibrancy. The children begin not just to take photographs but to create them. On a trip to the beach, one child slowly pours a bucket of water as he photographs the other children playing in the waves. The confidence with which he composes this picture demonstrates how seriously the children have begun to take the art of photography. By photographing the conditions in which they live, they begin to gain distance-and hope. The camera empowers these children, opening them up to a world outside of their seemingly dead-end existences and, in the process, proves that art does indeed save lives.

With an Oscar and critical acclaim surrounding their film, Briski and Kauffman are bypassing Hollywood and returning to India. The purpose of their trip will be to visit with the children and to search for a site to build their new school. Both see this as a beginning. "I don't know exactly what my role will be. I do know I love the kids and like going over there, even though it's a very difficult place to live and to work," Kauffman says. "I feel a connection with the place, and I don't see that dwindling anytime soon."

The school will be a bastion of the arts and leadership, where children of all castes can go and, of course, a place where the children of the red-light district can get an education. "I have a very strong karma with these people and with the children," Briski says with a laugh. "I think in a former life I was probably an Indian prostitute."