Redlight to Limelight review – the powerful tale of 500 sex workers who formed a film collective
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<p>This documentary can’t help but be moving as it follows the Cam On group in Kolkata, who are creating a drama based on their experiences – even if it could do with more depth</p><p>Cam On is a film-making collective comprising some of the estimated 500 sex workers and their children who live in Boro Goli, the red light district in Kalighat, a desperately poor area on the southern edge of Kolkata. “The street holds many stories,” says Rabin, the son of a Nepalese woman who wa
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Review Redlight to Limelight review – the powerful tale of 500 sex workers who formed a film collective This documentary can’t help but be moving as it follows the Cam On group in Kolkata, who are creating a drama based on their experiences – even if it could do with more depth C am On is a film-making collective comprising some of the estimated 500 sex workers and their children who live in Boro Goli, the red light district in Kalighat, a desperately poor area on the southern edge of Kolkata. “The street holds many stories,” says Rabin, the son of a Nepalese woman who was sold by her uncle into sex work at 12. “Love and threat at every turn.” He is the director of the film the collective is making, Nupur: The Story of Two Sisters. It’s a fictionalised amalgam of many of the members’ real experiences and tells the tale of an older sister who hopes to escape the fate that seems set for her and a younger one who lacks hope that it is possible. Redlight to Limelight is the documentary – part of the BBC’s award-winning Storyville strand – by Bipuljit Basu that follows them as they make their film, building art out of suffering, creating something worthwhile in an environment that seems hellbent on allowing nothing. Meena Haldar (styled Mina in the credits) plays the sisters’ mother. Her life in Boro Goli began when she was beaten and thrown out of her marital home with her seven-month-old daughter. She had no money, but a taxi driver gave them a lift to the red light district, introduced her to some of the women there and said that they would look after her. She has been there ever since. She now has a teenage son, Bunty, who has started truanting from school. Although his face is a familiar mask of teenage derision, you can see it overlays a misery that most – thanks to accidents of birth, history and luck – will never have to face. Srina Khatun – known in the community as Bilkis – plays the older sister. In life, too, she is resisting going to work in the brothels. Sh...
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