Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

SincereFinest disgusting, overrated, pointless

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

classicsoncall There's a reason I read a handful of positive and negative reviews for each film I watch before I post my own. This one draws severe criticism from more than a handful of reviewers who totally castigate the filmmakers and virtually everything about it - the editing, the choice of location, even the motives of the principals. Many of them, and not surprisingly in this age of 'white guilt', attempt to shame the principals for self aggrandizement while citing their vaunted position as of an elite minority class.By merely watching this documentary, none of those thoughts ever entered my head. Can it be such a bad thing that Zana Briski took a handful of underprivileged kids under her wing and attempted to show them there was an outlet for their creativity, and perhaps a way out of their situation? Most of these children felt resigned to taking up the same life as their parents, while realizing that it was an immeasurably bad one. When 'Zana Auntie' asked the young girl Suchitra "Do you see any solution to all this?", the answer was a resounding "No". One of the boys in the film gave a starker reply later on - "There is nothing called 'hope' in my future".With all that, it was so disheartening to learn at the end of the film that most of the kids featured returned in some measure to their prior life. Manik's father - didn't allow him to go to school. Puja's mother - withdrew her from the Sabena School. Shanti left on her own. Gour went back to live at home and wanted to attend the University. Tapasi ran away from home to attend a girl's school. Suchitra's aunt wouldn't let her leave the brothel. Only Kochi remained at Sabena.All you critics, ask yourself - "Where are these kids now?"

Mahendra Vishwakarma The life of the kids born in brothel are in itself is dark and painful. A beautiful portrayal of this reality by photographer Zana Briski. The kids living in the brothels do have a dream and wishes to live a good life but the society doesn't care or accept their wishes or dreams instead they are considered inferior and dark part of society. A Photographer living in a brothel with this kids to cover the true life, feeling, dreams of this kids is quite brave and courageous and trying to teach them something is a very kind gesture. The photographer tries to help these kids by giving them a better education but the most of the schools do not accept these kids because of where they come from; Many of the times the kids parents or guardians do not want the kids to educate and expect them to continue in same line of work as they are in. A effort made by the makers of this film changed the life of two kids at least who continued their education and tried to live a normal life.

anastasiyasinai The documentary Born Into Brothels 2004 I can not name impersonal. The first impression is the inner voice, you feel sorry for the life of children who grow up not in the streets, but at a place what you can hardly name home. Slams… beds.. garbage… food… strangers… newborn kids… And all of that together in one place. All of that are families who tries to survive the way they can. And in these families grow up children, who have to work from the very early age, They become mature much earlier than the same age wealthy children. They are taken as miserable sometimes by their relatives, who ed anger on them, but more often by their neighbors who know exactly the fact that their mothers earn as prostitutes. For no one is a secret that for those women's children, who work in Brothels – this is part of daily life. And for girls growing up there is the same way prepared to earn with their bodies, not having any opportunity to go to study, to get a profession, to become a person not wanting just as an object of desire…And it seems because of luck to the Brothels coming a group of people who is ready to teach children, to help them to explore their talents, to lead a path to a better life. We see the way the children start to shine, they do love taking pictures, making beautiful shots, which a bit later will be seen with wonder and sorry on an exhibition in United States. That shots tell us about children's' talent, which grows day after day and children tell us how much they want to study and go to a university, to get a profession…And after few years, really, they gotten into a school because of efforts of those teachers who worked with them… And families do agree that for their children this long way of study is truly better and will make them happy in future. And we are joyful to know that there are at least few fates who will be saved from drowning in poorness, surviving with nasty work.It feels, that over here the documentary supposed to end, completing its message. But final tittles make after the dot even two more… Someone ran away, someone was taken back to the family, … and just two of the kids stayed and continuing the study. For me it shows that not always our vision of the better future is the same for other people. And the way we see happiness is not the same for others. And this is mostly not about wealth, safety, what makes people feel better or not.. But about that there is an exact way of life people got used to. For them this is as normal as they can think. And not that many people can change their lives, even getting the opportunity which was given to these families, these children, but because of not wanting these changes… And no one can take a decision instead of other people. But hope was there. And that hope made grow up a few shoots

alli1976 This movie makes me cry, but not for the reasons the filmmakers intended. Briski and Kauffman represent the situation of sex workers' children in this poor Indian district in the most un-ethical and violent way possible -- by laying the blame at the heroic, unionized sex-worker moms that have managed to carve out a safe space for their families, under the kind of conditions that would beat any westerner down, and most reprehensibly, by using the families to raise themselves to be saints in the audiences' mind. In doing so they undermine the very children they supposedly want to help, and dupe Westerners whose only access to information like this is through mainstream /Oscar flicks. I second the advice of a viewer who urges audiences instead watch the film Tales of the Night Fairies, a more caring and truthful representation. Don't depend on my opinion here --- please paste into a search engine Born into Brothels, Praveen Swami, Seema Sirohi or Partha Banerjee to read incisive critique of the film by more knowledgeable folks - people who worked translating it, know the district, or report on the Indian Frontline's investigation of the filmmakers unethical behavior.The fact that the Sonagachi Red Light District where Briski et al filmed is not only the focus of MANY hardworking aid organizations (which Briski edits out, one can only assume to portray herself as the only bright shining angel) but also a case studied globally for its successes preventing HIV infection, for how women established workers cooperatives .....to collectively ensure their rights and safety (instead of being controlled by pimps), and strict community rules not to force anyone into prostitution... will astonish viewers who have seen the film. There is no way the filmmakers could not know this, or that these women began a trade union that has grown to 60,000 far beyond this small district. In fact, the filmmakers treat these women as the cause of the children's problems, and recommend removal of the children from their families! That Briski is British, thus from India's the former colonial power, and that she recommends a removal policy without realizing that it repeats colonial violence done in other British colonies (such as the forcible kidnapping of aborigine children in Australia in 1911 by whiter skinned people who could not imagine indigenous people capable of bringing up children) makes me wonder if it might not be BRISKI, rather than the brothel kids, who has been neglected and denied a proper education.Viewers need to know that an investigation by the Indian media Frontline showed that the film's most fundamental assumptions were false, particularly Briski's assertion that the children no education, or very little before she sent them to boarding school. In fact, ALL THE KIDS WERE GOING TO SCHOOL WHEN THE DOCUMENTARY WAS BEING MADE! It is a testament to Briski's own ignorance and misuse of rich white power that none of the cases in which she "removed" kids to boarding school have resulted in success or continuation. This is because the kids know what the sadly uneducated Briski cannot see, that their families are more than props in a gringa film. That Briski dupes Western audiences into misunderstanding the real issues in India's brothels, that she bathes in the limelight and accepts Academy Awards built on this exploitation, that she presents unethical hidden camera footage taken without these poor women's consent, that she so sneakily betrays these people who had nothing, but generously shared every single intimate part of their lives with this "savior" should alert us that somewhere, in England, children are growing up like Briski --- without being given the basic historical knowledge they so desperately need.Lets make a film about Briski's home town, use hidden cameras to show her friends in the worst light, and give it Bollywood's biggest award so we can finally remove poor rich white filmmakers from their neglectful colonialist parents, and give them to caring Calcuttans who will see that they receive the uncensored education they so desperately need.In all seriousness: This "research" would never have survived an ethics review board investigation, and suggests that we demand stronger ability and oversight of filmmakers to ensure ethical treatment of their subjects, especially in places where people may not have access to enforcing such ability.A better use for this film, and one that I use in my undergraduate classes, is to have students FIRST read Partha Banerjee's letter to the American Film Academy about the film's lack of ethics, and then watch BitB. Students marvel that the Oscar ignored his plea and awarded this film! I'll keep a DVD of this film in my college collection of ethnocentric diatribe classics such as "Warrior Marks" and "Not without my daughter" (apologies to Gidget). Like those films it embodies Gayatri Spivack's observation that so much of what es as Western humanitarianism is less about helping victims and more about the image of "White men saving brown women from brown men" (in this case White women "saving" brown kids from brown women).Please, lets set up a humanitarian fund to provide history classes to the poor, abused children of Britain that, like Briski, are at risk of becoming narcissistic missionary filmmakers that exploit the third world. They should not be doomed to repeat the colonial mistakes of the past, simply because they have not listened well in history class.