Born into Brothels (2004) Review

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(More customer reviews)In order to photograph in the red light districts of Calcutta, India, photojournalist Zana Briski lived there for several years. Though many of the residents were wary of her camera, Briski found that the neighborhood children were unafraid and curious. So she began teaching them photography, giving each child a point-and-shoot film camera with which to photograph his or her environment and providing classes on technique and editing. This eventually resulted in international acclaim for the children's photographs and media coverage for Briski's unusual photo classes. "Born Into Brothels" is a documentary of Briski's class of young photographers filmed by Zana Briski and Ross Kaufman about 2 years into the project that has become known as "Kids with Cameras".
The best thing about "Born Into Brothels" is that it allows the children to tell their story in their own words. Zana Briski's class of 8 photographers -who call her "Zana Auntie"- are children of prostitutes, born and raised among the harsh realities of Calcutta's Sonagachi red light district. There are 5 girls: Kochi, Tapasi, Shanti, Puja, and Suchitra, and 3 boys: Manik, Gour, and Avijit, ranging in age from 10 to 14 years, but mostly pre-teens. The documentary is dominated by interviews with the children and by their photographs, with occasional voiceover or footage of Zana Briski. The filmmakers are commendably respectful of the children and their decisions. These kids understand their situations very well and tend to be philosophical about it, yet many of them yearn for opportunities to escape life in the brothel. Interestingly, the kids are not fatherless children of single prostitutes, as I might have expected. Many of their mothers' are married and live with large extended families.
"Born Into Brothels" lets the kids talk about themselves, their families, and their world. We sit in on their photo classes, accompany them on photo field trips to the zoo and the beach, and sympathize with Zana Briski's frustration as she struggles with bureaucracy and prejudice to find boarding schools that will accept children of sex workers. We also see the kids beaming with pride and having some fun as they enjoy international success and a bit of fame in India as well. Zana Briski has obviously done a great deal of work and invested a lot of emotional energy in a project that may change the lives of a handful of children if she is lucky. But even if the kids lives' turn out no different than their parents', photography has broadened their outlook and given them some great experiences. "Born Into Brothels" is an engaging documentary of that process. To learn more or purchase prints, visit www.kids-with-cameras.org .
The DVD (Thinkfilm 2005): There are text bios of Zana Briski and Ross Kaufman. "About the Photographers" includes text bios of the children, which are useful in figuring out who is who.

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A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, BORN INTO BROTHELS is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in Calcutta's red light district, where there mothers work as prostitutes. Spurred by the kids' facination with her camera, Zana Briski, a New-York-based photographer living in the brothels and documenting life there, decides to teach them photography. As they begin to look at and record their world through new eyes, the kids, who society refused to recognize, awaken for the first time to their own talents and sense of worth. Filmmakers Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski capture the way in which beauty can be found even the seemingly bleakest and most helpless of places, and how art and education can empower children to transform their lives.
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A Harlot's Progress (2006) Review

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(More customer reviews)Koch Vision and BBC presents "A HARLOT'S PROGRESS" (2006) (120 mins/Color) (Dolby Digital) --- Toby Jones (AMAZING GRACE) plays English artist William Hogarth in this retelling of his life --- The film brings all the grubbiness of 18th century London to the screen as Hogarth's undoubted talent, and his infamous relationship with a prostitute, is outlined in vivid style --- Great contrasts and characterization --- William Hogarth (November 10, 1697 - October 26, 1764) was a major English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art --- His work ranged from excellent realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects" --- Much of his work, though at times vicious, poked fun at contemporary politics and customs --- Illustrations in such style are often referred to as Hogarthian --- BBC and Koch Vision release.
Under the production staff of:
Justin Hardy - Director
Clive Bradley - Screenwriter
Clare Alan - producer
Richard Blair-Oliphant - Original Music
Douglas Hartington - Cinematographer
Michael Harrowes - film editor
A Harlot's Progress (also known as The Harlot's Progress) is a series of six paintings (1731, now lost) and engravings (1732) by William Hogarth. The series shows the story of a young woman, Mary (or Moll) Hackabout, who arrives in London from the country and becomes a prostitute. The series was developed from the third image: having painted a prostitute in her boudoir in a garret on Drury Lane, Hogarth struck upon the idea of creating scenes from her earlier and later life. The title and rich allegory are reminiscent of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
In the first scene, an old woman praises her beauty and suggests a profitable occupation, procuring her for the gentleman shown to the back of the image. She is a mistress with two lovers in the second, has become a common prostitute on the point of being arrested in the third, and is beating hemp in Bridewell Prison in the fourth. By the fifth, she is dying from venereal disease, and she is dead aged only 23 in the last.
The protagonist is named after the heroine of Moll Flanders and Kate Hackabout. Kate was a notorious prostitute and the sister of highwayman Francis Hackabout: he was hanged on 17 April 1730; she was convicted of keeping a disorderly house in August the same year, having been arrested by Westminster magistrate Sir John Gonson.
The series of paintings proved to be very popular, and Hogarth used his experience as an apprentice to a silversmith to create engravings of the images, selling a "limited edition" of 1,240 sets of six prints to subscribers for a guinea. Pirate copies of the engravings were soon in circulation, and Hogarth procured a 1735 Act of Parliament (8 Geo. II. cap. 13) to prohibit the practice. Soon after, Hogarth published his second series of satirical and moralistic images, A Rake's Progress, followed some years later by Marriage à-la-mode.
The original paintings were destroyed in a fire at Fonthill Abbey, the country house of William Beckford in Wiltshire, in 1755. The original plates survived, and were sold by Hogarth's widow, Jane, to John Boydell in 1789; by him to Baldwin, Cradock and Joy in 1818, and then to Henry Bohn in 1835. Each produced further copies.(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
the cast includes:
Toby Jones ... William Hogarth
Philip Martin Brown ... Gaoler
Zoe Tapper ... Mary Collins
Geraldine James ... Mother Needham
John Castle ... Sir John Gonson
Kate Ambler ... Top floor whore
Sophie Thompson ... Jane Hogarth
Vicky Hall ... Sarah
Roger Hammond ... Doctor Rock
Adam Levy ... Nathaniel Hirsch
Francis Magee ... James Dalton
Nicholas Rowe ... Henry Fielding
Oliver Ryan ... Samuel Scott
Richard Wilson ... Sir James Thornhill
Sarah Jane Wolverson ... Singing Prisoner
SPECIAL FEATURES
Disc #1 -- Harlot's Progress
1. The Foudling Hospital [4:52]
2. Starvation [3:27]
3. Covent Garden [11:43]
4. Fortunes [8:40]
5. Black Market Gin [6:52]
6. Mother Needham [4:46]
7. The Wig Box [14:17]
8. Beating Hemp [7:02]
9. A Visitor [6:43]
10. Moral Welfare [17:44]
11. Notorious Quack [11:45]
12. Closing Credits [1:31]
Great job by Koch Vision --- looking forward to more high quality titles from the BBC Collection film market --- order your copy now from Amazon or Koch Vision where there are plenty of copies available on DVD, stay tuned once again for top notch releases --- where they are experts in releasing long forgotten films and treasures to the collector.
Total Time: 120 mins on DVD ~ Koch Vision KOCV-6535 ~ (6/10/2008)

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You may well be wondering how a respectable gentleman like me came to paint such scenes... 1731. Searching for inspirations inside London s seedy shadowlands, William Hogarth (Toby Jones) meets the beguiling Mary Collins (Zoe Tapper) in a Covent Garden brothel. The young prostitute soon becomes his muse, and as the artist strives for integrity, he grows dangerously close to his sordid subject. Torn between virtue and vice, Hogarth ultimately finds the spark he needs and creates A Harlot s Progress the series of paintings which brought him fame, wealth and respectability.

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