Born Into Brothels

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Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids The film, Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids, is a documentary of prostitutes’ children in a red light district. The director Zana Briski formed a close bond with roughly four children whose parents were prostitutes. Briski offered cameras to these children, taught them about photography, and takes them on trips. I believe this film represents the concept of “the Humanities” because it is a type of Humanities; film. The film had the children taking photographs of people where ever they pleased; visual art. The children photographed each other, buildings, streets, animals, their families, and often than not strangers. In the red light district taking photographs was considered illegal, and people were afraid of the cameras. The children were often insulted when taking pictures of people, but they did it anyway. Briski held classes with the children to teach them about photography, ask their opinions about photography, and to help further their educations. In classes Briski would ask the children which photos they liked, and why they liked them. In a one on one with one of the children Briski asked her what photo she didn’t liked, and then said why, because if she didn’t like it there had to be a reason. Briski and the children were doing a type of photography called straight photography. Straight photography is more direct, un-manipulated, and sharply focused. She showed the children line, shape, movement, and colors in their photography so they knew what to look for and to understand it. When seeing the classroom scenes of the film, it also makes me think of Humanities. This made me think of Humanities because Briski was sharing parts of Humanities with the children, and that’s what we do in classes today; art, music, film, Humanities class. Briski took the children to the beach, many of them had never

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