Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids

In the Sonagachi district of Calcutta, cameras are handed to the children of sex workers. They photograph their own streets, their homes and each other. The film's second thread is the effort to place those children in boarding schools. Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman directed. Briski is also the photographer who began the project, making her both the narrator and the intervening party. It won the documentary Oscar in 2005 and reached a wide audience. It also drew criticism in equal measure. Partha Banerjee, who worked on the film as a translator, said it never mentions the years of sex worker organising, local health work and social activism in Sonagachi. Some Indian critics and sex worker groups accused it of turning an outsider's gaze into a rescue narrative. In the years that followed the children's paths diverged; some stayed in school, some did not. Who it is for: viewers interested in photography and in arguing about the limits of interventionist documentary. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a one-sided rescue story, or already wary of that kind of story.