India Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids returned 10.1× its production cost, earning $3.5M against a $350K budget — one of the highest-return India films in our catalog.
Synopsis
Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.
Audience Engagement
195 audience reviews — more than 96% of India films in our index.
Popularity sits at the 89th percentile among India films.
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 1h 25m runtime, production spent $4K per minute on screen and earned $42K per minute back.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
The 2003–2005 India Window
Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids holds position #38 of 143 India films in the 2003–2005 window, below highlighted by audience rating.
The 2000s India Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 2000s in India, 454 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids premiered alongside 47 others.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 47 other India films in 2004.
The 469th India title from India we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1913).
Our India catalog contains 1,983 titles in total (1,904 films).
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- red-light district · 4
- illegal prostitution · 4
- young prostitute · 2
- child prostitution · 2
- human trafficking · 11
- calcutta · 8
- woman director · 246
- prostitute · 39
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #678 of 1,983 India films indexed here (66th percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is +0.4 points above the India average of 6.4/10.
Among India Documentary productions specifically: #10 of 18 (top 56%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | India |
|---|---|
| All Production Countries | United States of America, India |
| Original Language | En |
| Spoken Languages | Bengali, English |
| Production Companies | Red Light Films, Creative Visions Productions, Sundance Institute, HBO Documentary Films |
| Runtime | 1h 25m |
| Release Date | December 8, 2004 |
| IMDb | tt0388789 |
| Official Site | www.kids-with-cameras.org |