Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids

Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids (2004) is a documentary you can watch online on iFILM. American photographer Zana Briski spent months living inside Sonagachi, Calcutta's red-light district, and somewhere along the way she handed cameras to the children growing up there. What those kids shot became the film.

They photograph the streets, the chaos of the market, each other's faces — with an eye that has nothing to do with innocence and everything to do with seeing clearly. Several of their prints traveled to international exhibitions. Briski and co-director Ross Kauffman follow her attempts to place a handful of the children in boarding schools, knowing that for girls here, the path forward is almost written before they can read.

The film took the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2005 Oscars — not for being sentimental, but for being exact. It works because it steps back and lets the children's photographs ask the questions. Stream Born into Brothels online on iFILM.