Docu on film crew from brothel selected for US fest

Kolkata: The dream of telling their own stories brings sex workers and their children together to form a tiny self-taught film unit in a Kalighat brothel. Bipuljit Basu’s ‘Redlight to Limelight’, which traces this journey, has been selected as part of the 19 forum projects of North America’s largest documentary festival called Hot Docs. The event will be held along with Hot Docs’ International Documentary Festival on the first week of May in Toronto, Canada.After the Oscar win for ‘The Elephant Whisperers’, more such films are getting exposure and being invited to global platforms to pitch for international funding and co-production deals. On March 15, the 24th edition of the Hot Docs Forum announced its list of 19 projects representing 16 countries and featuring 23 film-makers, 12 of whom are women and 11 of whom are black, indigenous and people of color. They will now get to pitch to international decision makers and members of the documentary community. Nilotpal Majumdar, who is producing Basu’s film, feels this opportunity is important for taking the story of Kalighat’s self-taught film production company to the world. “Pitching forum has a crucial role for documentary film-makers. It is not only a space for getting co-producers but also an important platform for getting co-creators on board,” he said.“Through an immersive engagement, and inspired by hope, the amateur crew of the self-taught film production house called CAM-ON breaks open a new dream to fight discrimination. They achieve this by freeing the young girls from the brothel through skills and creativity, amidst the joy of storytelling,” Basu said.Rabin Bag, a member of CAM-ON, had worked as a line producer with Basu in his short film in 2019-20. “We hope the Hot Doc pitching session for Bipuljit-da’s work on us will draw the world’s attention to our work and how we are trying to fight our existential challenges,” Bag said.