[ThisWeek] Born into Brothels at the Kenworthy

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

Born into Brothels (R)
Friday, April 29
7:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday, April 30 & May 1
4:45/7:00 PM
$5 adults
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies
(See Review below)
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Next week at the Kenworthy-

The Sea Inside (PG13)
May 6 ay 7PM
May 7 - 8 at 4:15 and 7PM
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Also in May at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .

Lost Embrace (NR)
May 13 at 7PM
May 14 - 15 at 4:30 and 7PM

Eric Anderson
in concert
May 20 at 8:00 PM
Tickets $5 at Bookpeople

Rendezvous Music Showcase
May 21 at 7PM
$5 admission

Hard Goodbyes my Father (NR)
May 22 at 4:30 and 7PM

Million Dollar Baby (PG13)
May 27 at 7PM
May 28 - 29 at 4 and 7PM

Regular Movie prices:  $5 adults, $2 children 12 and younger.
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit http://www.kenworthy.org
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This week¹s review-

Born into Brothels

Documentary film
Produced and directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski
Directors of photography, Mr. Kauffman and Ms. Briski

In English and Bengali, with English subtitles
Rated R for some sequences of strong language
Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes


As reviewed by A.O. Scott writing for the New York Times

The impulse to document the lives of poor, neglected and oppressed people,
which motivates countless filmmakers and photojournalists, is unquestionably
noble, but it is not without certain ethical difficulties. Vital as it may
be to bring news of human suffering to audiences who might otherwise remain
comfortably ignorant, such exposure does not always help the suffering.

While most films of its kind allow this contradiction to hover in the
background, ''Born Into Brothels,'' a new documentary about children growing
up in Calcutta's rough and squalid red light district, faces it squarely.

Rather than simply record the lives of those children, Zana Briski, a New
York-based photojournalist who is one of the film's directors (along with
Ross Kauffman), became their teacher and their advocate. They, in turn,
started out as her subjects and became her collaborators. The resulting film
is moving, charming and sad, a tribute to Ms. Briski's indomitability and to
the irrepressible creative spirits of the children themselves.

At some point after arriving in Calcutta in the mid-1990's, Ms. Briski had
the simple, improbable and altogether inspired idea of organizing a
photography class. The seven children, four girls and three boys, who are
the focus of ''Born Into Brothels,'' were given cameras to take pictures of
the world around them. Their work provides the film with some of its most
beautiful and revealing images, offering glimpses of life in the crowded,
colorful alleyways of the red light district that no outsider could capture.

The young photographers approach their tasks with impressive seriousness,
and a few of them seem to be budding art critics as well as fledgling
artists, offering detailed analyses of lighting and composition.

They also benefit from Ms. Briski's presence, and from her connections. In
addition to taking them on photographic field trips to the seashore and the
zoo, she organizes exhibitions of their work in India and in New York, and
persuades Avijit, an especially talented boy, to enter an international
competition. But while ''Born Into Brothels'' recounts her tireless efforts
to help her protégés escape from the poverty and sex work that seems to be
their destiny, it also shows the limits of what a single person, however
dedicated, can do. Ms. Briski's goal was to find boarding schools for the
children in her class, which would offer both educational opportunities and,
more important -- especially for the girls -- a refuge from the violence and
degradation of the brothels.

The challenges she faced ranged from the chaotic state of Calcutta's
government bureaucracy to the resistance of the children's parents. ''Born
Into Brothels'' tempers its optimism with realism in a way that is both
uplifting and heartbreaking. Like Jonathan Kozol's books about young people
in American cities, it takes an almost naïve delight in the pluck and
intelligence that blossom in middle childhood, while exposing the cruelty of
social arrangements that allow those qualities to be squandered. No film can
dispel that cruelty, but in giving a handful of children the opportunity to
regard themselves as artists and to perceive their surroundings as raw
material, Ms. Briski snatches a measure of hope from depressing
circumstances. 
 

As reviewed by Jeffrey M. Anderson writing for the San Francisco Examiner

Many of 2004's high-quality non-fiction films proved groundbreaking in the
way that they mixed journalism with personal essays. Michael Moore
("Fahrenheit 9/11"), Ross McElwee ("Bright Leaves") and Jonathan Caouette
("Tarnation") succeeded by stepping in front of their cameras and becoming
part of the story.

The new film "Born Into Brothels" sounds like one of those stiff, somber
films, narrated by someone with a British accent, about how horrible things
are, but also how the children are big-hearted enough to endure.

But Ross Kaufman and Zana Briski's new film instead turns out to be a moving
and passionate new example of that previously mentioned crossbreed.

While studying the red-light district of Calcutta, British photojournalist
Briski became personally involved with several of the children there and
began to teach them photography as a way to help them out of their everyday
horror. She and co-director Kaufman documented the process.

And thus, the film quickly morphs from another document of misery and strife
into a film about these magnificent children and Briski's attempt to get
them out of the brothels before the girls are forced to join the dreaded
prostitution trade.


As reviewed by Marjorie Baumgarten writing for the Austin Chronicle

Winner of the 2004 Academy Award for Best Documentary, ³Born Into Brothels²
is a devastating portrait of impoverished Calcutta children who are born
into the sex trades, yet the film is also an inspiring document about human
possibilities and the need to strive despite impossible odds.

These children capture the images of their daily lives, although their
pictures and styles are reflective of their personalities and interests.

Born Into Brothels focuses on seven children, some of Briski¹s best and most
intuitively gifted students, whom she tries to get placed in private schools
as she claims this is probably their only means of escaping the red light
district.

The obstacles are stupendous, but so is Briski¹s indomitability. The amount
of red tape she wades through, and the beseeching, badgering, and cajoling
she employs takes the patience of a Job ­ or maybe a Mother Teresa.

Her travails are a reminder of individual responsibility and the need to
attempt to make the world a better place despite the almost certain
inevitability of failure. Once a viewer sees these children and their
photographs (they were made into a calendar one year for Amnesty
International), they are impossible to forget: children, who for once in
their lives, can see in their photographs the efficacy of their actions.
Heartbreak sets in because we realize as we are watching the film that, by
now, most of these pre-adolescents have been turned out into the sex trade
and have long ago abandoned their childhood.

The movie¹s greatest gift is its ability to perceive a world that is not
bereft of all possibility, while also acknowledging the cruel realities that
impede most progress. The only outrage is to never have tried.


Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org

To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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