Shooting their way out

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- "Born into Brothels," one of 12 films on the short list of possible nominees for this year's feature-length documentary Oscar, is an unflinching look at the rough lives of children growing up in Calcutta's red light district -- and one woman's attempt to lead them into better lives by teaching them photography.

The film by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski is an account of Briski's experience with a small group of children whose mothers support their families through prostitution -- a family business that many of the young girls in the environment are expected to pursue when they are old enough.

Briski -- a Cambridge-educated native of London with a master's degree in theology and religious studies -- traveled to India in 1995 to document female infanticide. Also in 1995, after her first encounter with Calcutta's red light district, Briski decided to live among the women to learn more about their culture.

Although Briski had studied documentary photography at the International Center of Photography in New York, she concluded that it was "almost impossible" to photograph inside the red light district.

"It is a separate society within itself," she said.

Briski decided instead to pass out cameras to some of the many children she said one encounters immediately upon setting foot in the district. As she said in "Born into Brothels," Briski's idea was to teach the children photography, and in return, see the world through their eyes.

"Born into Brothels" depicts not only Briski's tutorials with eight Calcutta children -- mostly in their pre- and early teens -- it also shows her students' personal struggles with the countervailing forces of hope for better futures and expectations that it is not for them to get out of their surroundings. Remarkably -- considering the circumstances of the lives -- the children seem to possess ample supplies of both pride and joy in their new avocation.

"They're all doing the best they can," said Briski in an interview with United Press International. "At some point some of them do get lost or they do get crushed or they lose that spark."

Of the eight children featured in "Born into Brothels," Briski said five have managed -- largely with her help -- to get out of the red light district into more promising environments, mostly educational institutions. Briski has established a nonprofit -- Kids with Cameras -- to build on the work shown in the movie.

"We're building a school in Calcutta to help get kids out of brothels," she said, "a school of leadership in the arts."

Due to open in 2006, the school will accommodate 50 to 100 students, Briski said. That will still leave thousands of children of prostitutes in Calcutta without a similar avenue. Briski said most estimates are that the city's red light district has about 7,000 prostitutes.

Kauffman -- a seasoned documentary filmmaker who had worked on projects with such filmmakers as Melvin Van Peebles and Sam Pollard -- said he wasn't keen on doing the movie when Briski first approached him.

"I basically said 'no,' because I knew how much time and effort and energy documentaries take and I wasn't prepared to sacrifice three or four years of my life for this," he said. "I thought, 'Who's going to want to watch a film about a bunch of kids living in a brothel in Calcutta?'"

After watching some video footage of the children, Kauffman easily changed his mind.

"(These children) are joyful, precocious, wicked smart, funny," he said.

Documentaries gained new popularity in the United States during the political year of 2004, and although Kauffman said he isn't particularly interested in the politics of documentary filmmaking, he is glad to see documentaries getting new respect in the marketplace. He singled out such titles as "Control Room, "Super Size Me," "My Architect," "Capturing the Friedmans" and "The Fog of War."

"It's great to see these films get such a wide audience -- to get seen by so many people -- and they absolutely deserve it," he said. "I hope it's not just a trend but a fact of life."

Along with "Born into Brothels," the short list of films being considered for a feature-length documentary Oscar includes "Home of the Brave"; "Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train"; "In the Realms of the Unreal"; "Riding Giants"; "The Ritchie Boys" and "The Story of the Weeping Camel." The list also includes "Super Size Me"; "Tell Them Who You Are"; "Touching the Void"; "Tupac: Resurrection" and "Twist of Faith."

Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- the highest-grossing documentary feature of all time -- is not eligible for a documentary Oscar, although Moore and Miramax films have promoted it for Best Picture consideration. Moore took his movie out of contention for the documentary prize because he wanted it to be televised prior to the Nov. 2 election, which would disqualify it for the documentary Oscar under academy rules.

Oscar nominations will be announced on Jan. 25 in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 77th Academy Awards will be presented on Feb. 27 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

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