Born Into Brothels

I love the library. Especially at this juncture of my life, with not having a job and no money coming in.

The library that my family and I frequent is the Washington Centerville Library, and it has a pretty large collection of movies and my kind of books. We've been going about every week or so, and I've found some great books to read and movies to watch.

Last week, I borrowed Born Into Brothels - I had heard that this was a good documentary, but never really thought about picking it up until I went to the documentary movie section of the library and saw this on the shelf.

Wow.

It's the story of a group of children in the Calcutta red light district of India. The co-writer of the documentary is a lady by the name of Zana who is a photographer. She started coming to this part of Calcutta to take photographs; however, the more time she spent with the kids who were born here and who live here with their prostitute moms and families, the more she fell in love with them. She decides to teach them photography and her dream for them is to go to boarding school where they can get an education and hopefully be able to leave the horrifying world of prostitution.

The movie shows different snapshots that were taken by the kids, and tells each child's story. My favorite picture is below - it's of one of the girls' friends and I just love the vibrancy of colors as well as the expression on the girl's face.


I recommend this movie to anyone who wants to know more about what it's like to live that kind of life and to see the world of prostitution through the eyes of a child. It's a story that will keep you in its grip - as Zana tries to get some of these kids into school and as she tries to encourage one of the boys to live out his dream of being a photographer, you will be heartbroken as well as encouraged.