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Sex workers' group to protest over Oscar award
March 2, 2005
Kolkata - Not everyone in Kolkata is celebrating the Oscar feat of Born into
Brothels. And the loudest grumbles come from Durbar Mahila Samanway Committee,
which looks after the welfare of Sonagachhi sex workers.
It is sulking primarily because Zana Briski shot the film without consulting
the NGO. “Whenever a document or any form of art work is planned on this area,
the ethical committee of our organisation takes a close look at the project and
certifies it,” said Mrinal Kanti Dutta, general secretary.
Zana Briski not only bypassed the committee but also ignored a letter asking
her to send a print of the documentary. “We are greatly disappointed at the way
she did so much keeping us in the dark,” said Swapna Gayen, president of
Sonagachi sex workers.
Zana might well question why she should seek the NGO’s permission. Dutta
admitted that this can’t be made mandatory. “But since we are the largest NGO
working in a highly sensitive zone, we expect people to talk with us first,” he
said.
Gayen admitted that the NGO could not recognise any of the children who worked
in the film.
Having failed to see the film, the NGO now fears that it “might not have
projected the lives of sex workers in true light”. “We have no idea of the
content of the documentary,” said Gayen. Dutta claimed the committee had asked
director Zana Briski and co-director Ross Kauffman to screen the film for them,
but their repeated requests were ignored.
"We will write to the Oscar committee voicing our protest and apprehension that
Briski may have exploited the lives of common sex workers for her own benefit,"
said Dutta.
Briski began studying the lives of the sex workers of Sonagachi in 1998 but
eventually became more interested in the lives of their children. She devised a
way for the children's creative emancipation by handing the most curious boys
and girls to aim and shoot with cameras and asking them to go out and take
pictures.
The children's struggle, joy and talent with their cameras inspired Briski and
American co-director Kauffman to film a documentary.
Alongside, the pictures taken by the children toured the world in exhibitions
and raised almost $100,000 - the money earmarked for the education of the
children. DMSC officials, who have not seen the film but heard about it from
other sources, said they fear the documentary is inauthentic in not being shot
in Sonagachi, but in some other neighbourhood in the city.
Doubts are also being raised about the identity of the children showed as
offspring of sex workers of Sonagachi.
"No one told us that a documentary was being made on the lives of the children
of sex workers. We are not unhappy about that, but we wish a balanced view of
things were presented. Also, we want the collective uplift of the children and
not only a few individuals," said Dutta.
DMSC said it had called a meeting of its executive committee on Thursday to
decide on the future course of action.
But far removed from these controversies, the children who figure in the
documentary are happy with the film's success.
"The film has changed our lives. We owe so much to Zana auntie," said Puja, a
14-year-old girl who showed journalists a book compiled from their photographs.
Puja, who uses only one name, said on Briski's insistence many of her friends
and other children had enrolled in schools and were pursuing other vocational
courses. "I've myself begun taking computer classes."
Briski has also helped many boys like Abhijit Das and Manik Das to go to school
and think of a life beyond the squalor of the brothels they were born into.
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Dispute
over film's brothel children
2-28-2005
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