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.
The 2003–2005 India Window
143 India films released in this three-year window, ranked here by audience rating. Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids sits at position #38.
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 2000s India Landscape
Catalog density by release year in the 2000s. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids premiered. 454 total titles in this decade from India.
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 1h 25m runtime, production spent $4K per minute on screen and earned $42K per minute back.
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 |