Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids is a 2004 American documentary film about the children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata's red light district. The widely acclaimed film, written and directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, won a string of accolades including the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 2004.
Briski, a documentary photographer, went to Kolkata (Calcutta) to photograph prostitutes. While there, she befriended their children and offered to teach the children photography to reciprocate being allowed to photograph their mothers. The children were given cameras so they could learn photography and possibly improve their lives. Much of their work was used in the film, and the filmmakers recorded the classes as well as daily life in the red light district. The children's work was exhibited, and one boy was even sent to a photography conference in Amsterdam. Briski also recorded her efforts to place the children in boarding schools.
A documentary, The Gift, by filmmaker Louise Hogarth is a timely investigation into a fascinating phenomenon -- the eroticization of deliberate HIV infection -- that shines a balanced yet uncompromising flashlight on the effectiveness of HIV prevention strategies and the mixed messages that continue to dangerously fuel a psychologically complex and potentially deadly game . Evenly presented yet unapologetically honest, Hogarth's film wades through very tricky and fragile political waters without being preachy or judgmental.
With the end of his marriage, 43-year-old filmmaker Dennis O'Rourke is trying to understand how love can be simultaneously banal and profound. He comes to Bangkok, the fantasy mecca of exotic sex and painless love for Western men. When he meets a Thai prostitute he decides make a film about her.
The "Good Woman" of the story is Aoi. In Thai, her name means "sugar cane" or "sweet" -- not her real name, but the one she uses. She works as a prostitute, catering to the male tourists who crowd the girlie bars of Patpong.
Starting from this worst-possible condition their relationship is recorded: its evolution from fake sexual intimacy to collusion in the process of making the film and, finally to friendship and a kind of love.