MCN Interview: Mad Hot Ballroom

Any number of great documentaries have taken their audiences to places on Earth where angels fear to tread, but mere mortals somehow find ways to endure. Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman’s Born Into Brothels began life as just such an exploration. Somewhere along the way, however, the film evolved into something far more complex and, in a way, miraculous.

The journey began in 1998, when Briski began living with prostitutes in one of Calcutta’s maze-like red-light districts. The London-born photographer had already spent time traveling through India, documenting the incomprehensibly harsh conditions faced by women there, including such man-made obstacles as female infanticide, child marriage, dowry deaths and ritual widowhood.

Although it took a while for the women to accept Briski’s presence in the midst, she was immediately struck by the openness of the children and their fascination with her camera. One day, she brought along 10 point-and-shoot cameras to the district, and formed a workshop for several of the more determined kids. Impressed by their enthusiasm, Briski began to devote most of her time and energy into working with the children, even to the point where she traded her still camera for a video camera.

These tapes helped convince the veteran editor and aspiring cinematographer, Kauffman, to join Briski in Calcutta. Together, they came up with a framework and storyline for Born Into Brothels. Among other things, the documentary would demonstrate how art could be immensely liberating, and an empowering force for change.

After winning the Audience Award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and the Nestor Almendros Prize for Courage in filmmaking from Human Rights Watch 2004, Born Into Brothels was named Best Documentary by the Los Angeles Film Critics and National Board of Review.

Briski’s current passion is Kids with Cameras, an organization that’s active in Calcutta, Haiti, Jerusalem and Cairo. It is designed to “empower children growing up in difficult circumstances and allow them to appreciate the beauty and dignity of their own expression.”
Proceeds from the sale of prints and the companion book, Born Into Brothels, go directly to Kids With Cameras.

Oscar-nominated Born Into Brothels is now playing in New York City, and opens Friday in Los Angeles and Boston. This interview took place in Los Angeles, on a promotional visit for the film.

Movie City News: At some point, while watching Born Into Brothels, I flashed on City of God. That was a drama, albeit one based on real people and events in Rio de Janeiro, while your students actually lived in some of Calcutta’s most squalid districts, and produced real photographs.

Zana Briski: I haven’t seen City of God, but a lot of my friends have suggested that I do. I’ve just been too busy.

MCN: The children in City of God were awash in images of violence and pop culture, with reggae music blaring over loudspeakers throughout the shantytown. Were the children of the brothel district similarly exposed to images of western life?

ZB: When I arrived there, there might have been one television set per brothel. By the time I left, there probably were four or five. They were small and black-and-white, for the most part, but there also were televisions in shop windows and other places.

MCN: Did these images, from Bollywood or MTV Asia even, foster in the kids any dreams of escape?

ZB: No. For them, there’s no hope for the future … no options.

Ross Kauffman: It’s true. There’s no thought of leaving that place.

MCN: Nonetheless, the children we saw didn’t seem to be openly depressed by that reality. They weren’t moping around the brothels or constantly in tears. They often seemed happy.

ZB: For the most part, they were happy, although some kids we saw already had been beaten down and were depressed. Some of the girls already knew they’d end up like their mothers, and were quite withdrawn. But the kids in the movie were in good shape.

MCN: The father of one of the girls already had tried to kidnap and sell her, but her mother stepped in just in time. It’s been pretty well documented that the trafficking of young girls, primarily in Southeast Asia, is such a lucrative business that parents often raise children with the intention of selling them into prostitution.

ZB: Actually, there is a lot of trafficking of young girls … especially from Bangla Desh and parts of Nepal. Many are sold at the borders, which means the parents aren’t necessarily aware of what kind of work their daughters will be doing, or that the man they married her off to is a pimp. There is an international effort to educate parents about where the girls end up, after they let them go.

Meanwhile, in the brothels, prostitution is a self-perpetuating business because everyone in the red-light district stays in the red-light district. There’s no way out.

MCN: The girls know they’re going become prostitutes?

ZB: Typically, the women -- many of whom are under extreme financial pressure -- don’t actually put their daughters into the trade. They will, however, marry them off to a man from the area who will turn them out. It’s more indirect.

MCN: What happens to the boys?

ZB: They become pimps, drug dealers or vendors in the area.

MCN: How much of this can be blamed on the caste system?

ZB: It goes beyond the caste system. Two of my students were Brahman, the highest class. All of the people in the red-light district are treated as if they’re untouchable.

MCN: How big are these brothel districts? My image of Calcutta is that it’s one vast ghetto. But the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta actually was a small dungeon, in which a bunch of Europeans were incarcerated for a short time, in the 1700s, and died of heat and lack of air.

ZB: Physically, this particular red-light district was small -- on a couple square blocks -- but very dense. Something like 7,000 people lived there. There might be a half-dozen others in the city, as well.

MCN: How did you decide to focus on this red-light district?

ZB: It was karmic, I guess. Most the kids I met through local relief organizations, with schools. Others I met while I was researching the brothels. It was very organic.

MCN: Was your original intention to work with the children?

ZB: No, it was to do something on the women.

MCN: At some point, then, did you become fascinated with the children’s reactions to the camera?

ZB: Yeah. The whole thing was like that.

MCN: How did the women react to you … were they forthcoming? Did they want their stories told, or did they consider you to be some freak from America?

ZB: A freak, probably. No, they didn’t want their stories to be told, or to be photographed. They were frightened that their photographs would appear in a movie, and they’d be recognized.

But, they would like to talk about how their days went.

Some of them were jaded, because other people had come in to the brothels to tell their stories, and nothing ever came of it. But, they got used to me, because I lived there and kept coming back to them.

MCN: Was it dangerous?

ZB: Yes. There was a lot of crime.

MCN: Had you any experience with prostitution, or did you go into this thing blind?

ZB: Pretty much blind. But I knew it would be different than prostitution in America or Europe, where women get into it to feed a drug habit or because they were sexually abused. In India, it’s because of poverty, and the societal stigma that prevents them from leaving.

MCN: Were you able to relate to those women simply on a woman-to-woman basis, or was there too big of a gap to overcome?

ZB: There were no similarities in our experiences. I knew that I was raised with privileges, including having an education and the choice to be whatever I wanted to be. That’s why I wasn’t judgmental about their choices.

MCN: Were they always sad … what were the women like in private?

ZB: They could be very funny. They also were feisty, volatile emotionally and strong.

MCN: How do the transactions take place? Was there a lineup inside the brothels, or did the women walk the streets?

ZB: In the quieter lanes of the red-light districts, people would usually just sit outside the brothels and wait for customers. Or, they would wait inside the brothels.

The children saw everything, whether it was through a crack in the door, or they were in the next room. It wasn’t unusual for a woman to keep a baby in the same room where she met customers.

MCN: So, this wasn’t a traditional brothel, in a western sense … like the Chicken Ranch or those in Amsterdam?

ZB: Every room in a building is occupied by a prostitute. Now, some of the women will go back and forth between the brothels and their villages, where they’d lie about what they were doing in the city. But, the children are raised in the brothels.

MCN: Your students seemed to betray a certain childhood innocence, however.

ZB: They were innocent only in that they weren’t blameworthy. But, they’re not naïve in any way. The girls may be in denial about what’s going to happen to them, but that’s not the same.

MCN: Was this an expensive film to make? You must have gone through a lot of film with the kids.

RK: We’re big fans of Visa and MasterCard.

ZB: Developing the film and making prints was the most costly. Each of the kids got one or two rolls of film to shoot a week, so they learned to be conservative. Not like Ross.

RK: I just kept the mini-DV camera rolling. Half the time, I would forget to turn it off.

ZB: You shot a 170 hours of footage, but 150 of it was of your feet.

MCN: Were the cameras difficult for the students to use.

ZB: No, they were point and shoot … no need to focus or use light meters. And, they had large view finders.

MCN: They seemed to get it right away … their pictures were well composed and artistic.

RK: It was great watching the kids while they were shooting. I could see that they were composing through the camera. They were getting better and better, as we shot the documentary, yet their approach remained fresh.

MCN: Were you surprised by their choices?

ZB: I was constantly surprised. I didn’t have any preconceived notions about what they would or should shoot. They were looking at everything. They weren’t photographing what their mothers were doing, but pretty much everything else.

RK: Each of the kids developed their own separate style and favorite subject matter.

MCN: In the scene in which the kids attended the gallery opening, and were shown a clip from a newspaper … one jokingly said, “I’m world famous.” Were your students like the kids we see in movies from Rio and New York, who wander freely around the city and get by on their street-smarts?

ZB: No, they really can’t do that. Because of where they live, they’re not free to wander around the city. They weren’t apprehensive about going into the city … but the escalators scared a couple of them.

RK: When we were out in the city, occasionally someone would look down on the kids. Even if they were with us, they’d get a hard time.

They handled it decently, but you could tell they were hurting.

MCN: Not all of the kids stayed the course. Before the end credits rolled, you described briefly what’s happened to them since you wrapped production.

ZB: Each of the situations was different. Today, three more of the kids are out of the brothels and their work continues.

In some cases, the women needed the kids to help them in the brothels. In others, the mothers were too ashamed to let their kids go, because they didn’t want it to appear as if they couldn’t raise their own kids. Or, the mother would get pregnant and she needed help with the baby.

In one case, a girl left on her own accord. She was more comfortable with the hell she knew than the surprises that awaited her outside the district.

MCN: Has this movie been shown in India?

ZB: No, I promised the women it wouldn’t be.

MCN: How much control did the women have over the dealings with their customers … could they demand that the men wear condoms, for instance?

ZB: No, none. Not if they needed the money.

MCN: Are the problems faced by these women of concern to most Indian citizens? Do reports of the killing of unwanted girl babies disturb the populace?

ZB: No, they don’t talk about it.

MCN: Do Indian filmmakers make documentaries about these issues.

ZB: No. It’s a matter of no concern to most Indians.

MCN: How did it feel for you to leave the brothels every night and go to an apartment away from the district.

RK: Every night was difficult. Zana’d come home after work, and she’d be a mess. One of my jobs was to pick her up off the floor, put her in bed, and help her keep on going.

MCN: At one point in the movie, we learn that one of the girls couldn’t attend the gallery opening because her mother couldn’t afford the equivalent of quarter for a babysitter. Did you have to fight the temptation to help them financially, even in small way?

ZB: In that particular case, it was just an excuse for her not being allowed to leave the district. A little bit of money wasn’t going to solve anyone’s problems.

You can purchase prints at www.KidsWithCameras.com. 100% of the net print sales goes directly to the children's education and all contributions are fully tax deductible.

January 25, 2005