Wrong! Some of it goes to their new $3600 office space located in trendy Nolita, Manhattan! Guess who the landlord is??? His initials are RK. HAHAHA!

Mr. Kauffman’s sincerity seemed genuine to me. They seem to be very concerned about protecting the children and said they never plan to show the film in India, just to be sure of that safety. All the proceeds of the Kids-With-Cameras organization’s sales of the prints and book copies are to go to forming a school directly for the children of the sex workers in Calcutta.

I don’t know about the typical American’s response to the film as I am fairly aware of current Indian cinema, both Bollywood and Regional, but as a non-desi viewer, I feel that in no way was Briski and Kauffman’s project setting out to single out Calcutta as the only place in the world that has poverty, crime and mistreatment of children. We are smart enough to know that these miseries are worldwide. She just set the focus on the place where she worked and illustrated the conditions she found. We do well to look at it and then respond to that cause, and others, as we are able. I applaud them for their attempt.

Are we so frail that we cannot bear to see our own image in the mirror? If we don’t like the image, should it really be the mirror that needs to be broken?

Lets assume for the time being — and I don’t believe this is the case — that Briski is a selfish filmmaker who intends to exploit the children for her own selfish means. Given this assumption, still, isn’t the portrayal of the children’s life honest? Isn’t it true that these children have been robbed of their own childhood due to the circumstances which aren’t really their fault? Isn’t it true that the fleeting moment of artistic freedom — even if it was to further the director’s selfish aims — brought genuine smiles to the children’s faces?

Why is it the director’s fault if people watch this movie and believe that all of calcutta is a big brothel? That would be a bigger reason why we need to highlight what is good in the city; why we need to do more to attract investments; why we need to convince the investors that we are aware of the problems and are moving to address them; that we need to say that yes we have problems, but we need to move ahead not cringe at how difficult the problem is.

There might be many valid criticisms of Briski, but so far I haven’t heard of any that convinces me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/movies/oscars/01jame.html

Partha Bannerjee is a NY-based West Bengali community activist who currently directs the International Institute of NJ. He used to work at NICE (New Immigrant Community Empowerment).

My mother runs a non-profit, Street Children International whose donor base is mostly professional Bengali NRI Hindu small donors. They fund pavement schools in Calcutta and additionally send money to the Ramkrishna mission in Barrackpore to sponsor a few kids up to the age of 18. They also support projects in other parts of West Bengal, India. You can e-mail me if it fits with your worldview and you want to volunteer your time/energy–really needed. I don’t help out because I have more critque than energy (and I’m a bad son:) ), but they do do needed work.

If you don’t like this project, there are other projects that people are working on–e.g. Probini. Also, the Indicorps fellowship for grassroots work is coming up soon if you actually want to go to India.

Unfortunately, while these small-scale projects are there, NRI uncles and aunties are spending far more (about 1 million dollars) on cultural affairs like the 25th anniversary of the Banga Sammelan. More ironic because New York is a city that runs on Bengali labor.

So now can we get back to bitching?

there’s a movie about shohini ghosh on the brothels of calcutta which chronicles the lives of how the sex workers themselves try and make more of their and their childrens’ lives. (wonder why a movie about brown people helping themselves will never win an oscar..hmm..wonder why..hmm).

I really enjoyed Shohini Ghosh’s documentary on the DSMC (a collective of sex workers in Kolkata); it’s a film by an Indian director, and wouldn’t qualify for the Oscars’ documentary category. For all the problematic ickiness and cultural politics, Zana Briski still spent several years of her life living, documenting, and teaching in Kolkata’s red light district. In my book, that’s long enough to deserve the ‘right’ to make a film about the children she taught.

RC, calling Brisky and Kauffman “greedy SOB filmmakers” is a bit over the top. Have you read any of the responses (1, 2) to Banerjee’s allegations?