One Red-light District, Two Different Visions:
A series of films, roundtable discussion, and workshop

October 25 – November 2, 2005
at the Collins Cinema, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College

Wellesley College’s Davis Museum and Cultural Center and Women’s Studies Department co-presented a festival of films documenting the lives of sex workers in India and South Korea, that featured the 2004 Academy Award winning documentary Born into Brothels.

This festival brought together several filmmakers (Zana Briski, Ross Kaufman, Shohini Ghosh) and their films (Born into Brothels, Tales of the Night Fairies, Camp Arirang, and Mamasang: Remember Me This Way) on the Wellesley campus to investigate the role of documentary films in shaping our understanding of people’s lives in sex work. This series of events -- ranging from film screenings to a roundtable discussion to a workshop -- examined the powers of the camera and the ethics and politics of representation in documentary films. All events were organized by Henry W. Luce Foundation Assistant Professor in Asian Studies at the Women’s Studies Department, Sealing Cheng.


Schedule of Events:

OCTOBER 25 at 5:30pm
Lives in Brothels

Screening and discussion of Born into Brothels and Tales of the Night Fairies, two documentary films about the residents of the red-light district in Sonagachi in Calcutta, India.

5:30 pm
BORN INTO BROTHELS (2004) 84 min, Ross Kaufman and Zana Briski
Link: http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/home/

A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, Born into Brothels is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta, where their mothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski, a New York-based photographer, gives each of the children a camera and teaches them to look at the world with new eyes. Touching and heartfelt, yet devoid of sentimentality, Born into Brothels defies the tear-stained tourist snapshot of the global underbelly. Briski spent years with these children and became a part of their lives. Born into Brothels is the winner of the 2004 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

7 pm
TALES OF THE NIGHT FAIRIES (2002) 74 min
Shohini Ghosh
Link: http://www.bayswan.org/swfest/tales.html

Five sex workers in Calcutta, India - four women and one man - along with the filmmaker/narrator embark on a journey of storytelling. Tales of the Night Fairies explores the power of collective organizing and resistance while reflecting upon contemporary debates around sex work. The film attempts to represent the struggles and aspirations of thousands of sex workers who constitute the DMSC (Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee or the Durbar Women's Collaborative Committee) an initiative that emerged from the Sonagachi HIV/AIDS Intervention Project. The simultaneously expansive and labyrinthine city of Calcutta forms the backdrop for the personal and musical journeys of storytelling.

8:15 pm
Post-screening discussion with Shohini Ghosh

OCTOBER 26 at 6pm
Documentary Filmmaking: Powers, Pleasures and Dangers
A Workshop with Filmmaker Shohini Ghosh

This workshop with feminist scholar and filmmaker Shohini Ghosh explored ways of critical engagement through documentary films and issues of representation in portraying the lives of marginalized social groups. A total of 17 students were admitted into the workshop.

OCTOBER 27 at 6 pm
Documenting Lives in an Indian Red-light District Sonagachi
Roundtable Discussion with Filmmakers
Ross Kaufman, Zana Briski and Shohini Ghosh
Moderated by Gretchen Soderlund, University of Chicago

Filmmakers of Tales of the Night Fairies (2002, Shohini Ghosh) and Born into Brothels (2004, Ross Kaufman and Zana Briski) discussed their documentaries about lives in the red-light district (Sonagachi) in Calcutta, India.

How do the filmmakers come to choose their subjects? What are their relationships with the people whom they film? What are their ethical concerns in making their films? What kind of impact do they aim to achieve through their films? The roundtable discussion provides a forum for filmmakers and audience to explore these and other questions together.

NOVEMBER 2 at 6 pm
Women in US Military Camp Towns in South Korea: 1995 and 2005

Screening and discussion of two films, divided by a decade, that portray women who work in clubs for US military in South Korea.

6 pm
CAMP ARIRANG (1995) 28 min
Diana S. Lee & Grace Yoon Kyung Lee

For decades, since the Korean War, thousands of Korean women have been working as prostitutes for American soldiers. In Camp Arirang, the filmmakers explore the lives of the sex workers and their fatherless Amerasian children who live in US camp towns throughout South Korea. Through interviews with the workers, soldiers, and scholars and through contemporary and archival footage, the film reveals the story of how the Korean government and the US military have cooperated in the sale and control of women's bodies. Featured is a charismatic ex-prostitute, Yon Ja Kim, who now devotes her life to the welfare of older sex workers and their biracial children.

6.30 pm
MAMASANG: REMEMBER ME THIS WAY (2005) 65 min
Kim Il-rhan, Cho Hye-young

The women engaged in the sex industry that sprung up around US military bases in the past were called ‘Yang-Gongju’ (Yankee Princess). Where are they and how do they live now? Mamasang: Remember Me This Way is produced by a non-profit organization for a feminist cultural movement (‘pinks’). It reveals the workings of the military sex industry through two viewpoints, the life of a woman living in a military base village as a prostitute in the past, and a mamasang managing immigrant women working at a base village club in the present.

7.45 pm Post-screening discussion with Professors Julie Chu (Anthropology), Sunhee Lee (EALL), and Sealing Cheng (Women’s Studies)

This series was funded by the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Amy Sommer ’87, Davis World Cultures Fund, Committee for Lectures and Cultural Events, and Henry W. Luce Foundation.