This film won the "77th Academy Award for Best Documentary" (DOCUMENTARY FEATURE). The film tells the story of a journalist teaching children in Kolkata's red-light district how to take photographs, and in doing so, presents photography as a possibility for changing one's destiny. Children growing up in India’s red-light districts face environments of poverty, suffering, and despair—do they have any chance to escape the same fate as their mothers? A group of children living in Kolkata’s red-light district gradually learn about photography under the guidance of the director.
In 1998, New York journalist Zana Briski came to Kolkata's red-light district intending to photograph some images related to prostitutes. In the end, she not only got to know them but also their children. The children became interested in her and her camera. Not long after returning to New York, she brought back several cameras and began providing photography training to these children. This training came from her sudden inspiration: she decided to organize a photography class, giving the seven young protagonists in the film cameras to document the world around them. In fact...