There is nothing called hope in my future.

Hi Im the movie encyclopedia and if no one else will see it, I will.

Every now and again a movie comes along that deeply moves you. Whether it is its story or its characters or its setting, there is always one movie that deeply touches you. For a long time it was the notebook for me but now its a new one in the form of the Academy Award Winning documentary Born into Brothels.

Born into Brothels is the tale of a group of kids living in Calcutta's red light district. They have no hope, no future, no goals. The only outcome for a lot of these kids is dying on the street, crime, drugs or prostitution...in fact it runs in their family. The only tiny sliver of redemption comes in the form of our main protaganist Zana Briski (who also made the movie and narrates it) She is a photographer and film maker who was in Calcutta studying prostitution and the women of these brothels. What she discovered soon after was the children. The children who work behind the scenes and deal with this horrible life with a smile. Zana takes a small group of kids and starts teaching photography. There are nine kids in all, each with their own different lives and stories. Each one of their stories is told in a series of pictures of their life and also pictures that they have taken. The film is pretty in depth in terms of letting you into the lives of these kids. The two children the movie focuses on are on opposite sides of the life spectrum.


One is Kochi, a spunky girl with a lot of heart. She is bold, daring, and despite the culture, speaks her mind whenever she wants. She is always smiling and talking and laughing. She is the ideal optimist. She is also one of the higher up families in the neighborhood so she mostly wears nice clothes and eats good food. But she never flaunts it.


The other one is Avijit. Avijit is one of the older children and is sometimes teased for being bigger in both height and weight. He is the stoic leader of the pack you could say. He is a pretty deep thinker and wise beyond his years. His dad is addicted to hash and his mom is a prostitute and they sell illegal alcohol. Their life is literally hell but Avijit never lets on that anything bad is going on. In fact the line up at the top is taken from him. Out of all the children though Avijit has the most likely chance of getting out. He is a great photographer and artist, the only problem though is he has sorta given up.


Through their struggles we see hope in dark places. Like Murderball, Anvil and so many other documentaries, this ones main theme is hope through adversity.

If you enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire or enjoy watching cute kids try to achieve their dream then this is the ideal movie. And dont be turned off because it is a documentary...its really shot in a way that it doesnt feel that way. So please see this movie.

And if you want to go to the site of the foundation started by Zana then please visit kids with cameras dot org to get all the information you need, as well as updates on the kids.

MY VERDICT: SEE IT