Ross Kauffman ’89 and his collaborator, Zana Briski, won the 2005 Academy Award in the documentary film category.
By Dave Lavallee ’79, M.P.A. ’87Photo by Zana Briski
A trip to a secondhand bookstore the summer before his senior year at the University of Rhode Island changed Ross Kauffman’s life. A marketing major who graduated in 1989, he figured he’d probably end up working in his family’s 100-year-old horse saddlery business.
“I was living in Newport during the summer between my junior and senior year, and I stopped by a secondhand bookstore and bought The Elements of Film by Lee Bobker. I read it in one night, and then I bought three more books on film. In my senior year, I just read anything on film that I could get my hands on.”
Sixteen years later, after rising through the ranks as a film editor and producer in New York City, Kauffman and his collaborator won the 2005 Academy Award in the documentary film category. Kauffman, 37, and Zana Briski were nominated for their film Born Into Brothels, which features the children of prostitutes in the red light district of Calcutta, India.
In addition to the 2005 Academy Award, the film won the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and garnered more than 25 awards at other festivals, including Best Documentary of the Year by the National Board of Review and Best Documentary of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics.
Calcutta and the bright lights of the Academy Awards and numerous international film festivals were a long way from Kingston, Newport, and even Boston, where Kauffman lived after graduation. “I knew I wanted to get a job in film production, but I went to live in Boston for a while where I read, wrote, and went to movies three times a day. That was my film school until a job opened up.”
When he landed that first job in New York, he started at the very bottom, “but I loved it because I learned so many different aspects of production and film-making,” Kauffman said.
He then became a production coordinator on commercials and a producer of short films. “I realized through all my reading, however, that the way to learn how to make films was to learn how to edit. Many of the great filmmakers were film editors.”
His next job was with an editing house in New York City run by legendary editors Victor Kanefsky and Sam Pollard, who edited the documentary Style Wars, which captured the New City graffiti and hip hop scene.
“When I was a kid, I used to flip though the arts and leisure sections of the New York papers, and I learned about Style Wars. A friend of mine and I went to see it, and we loved it. Years later, I see a plaque on the wall for Style Wars, and I realize I am sitting next to the guys who made it such a success.”
After three years with Pollard and Kanefsky, Kauffman became a freelance editor, but began tiring of the work, “I had been at it for 10 years, and I didn’t like it anymore. I always knew I didn’t want a 9 to 5 job where you sit in front of the computer, and editing came to be that. I liked being out among human beings.”
Around that time, he was dating Zana Briski, an award-winning still photographer, who had been working in the red light district of Calcutta taking pictures of the children of prostitutes. “She lived in a small, dark, cramped room, and the people shared their stories with her,” Kauffman said.
About a year after her arrival in Calcutta, Briski decided to buy 20 point-and-shoot cameras for the children and began teaching them photography. “When she got the first contact sheets back, she was blown away by the images,” Kauffman said. “She kept writing to me about the kids, but I didn’t get how really great this was. Zana really wanted to get this documented in a short film.
“She wanted to make a film with me, but I said no because I wasn’t ready for that. I knew we’d go broke and that it would be hard on our relationship,” said Kaufman, who had been dating Briski for about six years.
Still, Briski went out and bought two video cameras. One she gave to Kauffman for his birthday and the other she took with her to Calcutta. “Zana sent me four videotapes, and when I started to watch the footage, I was totally hooked in the first few minutes. I was in Calcutta three weeks later.
“Zana is extremely tenacious, and she’s so smart,” Kauffman said. “I was expecting a fairly depressing story, but I saw these kids so full of joy running around with the cameras, so proud to show their families what they had done. It was those kids who kept us going through the hard times we experienced in four years of making the film.
“We finished the day before the 2004 Sundance Film Festival,” Kauffman added.
Now he acknowledges that even if he and Briski hadn’t won the Academy Award, it would have been worth it. “My time in Calcutta with the kids is something I will never forget. We created bonds that will grow over the years.”
Briski’s original idea to help the children of Calcutta by teaching them photography has blossomed into a foundation called Kids with Cameras, and now the kids’ photography is being shown at film festivals and theaters around the world. So far, $100,000 has been raised for their education. Those who would like to buy photographs can also so do online at http://www.bornintobrothels.com."
“We just love these kids, and we are trying to help them get out of the brothel,” Kauffman said. “Kids with Cameras is going to start a small, high-powered school called the School of Leadership and the Arts for the children of prostitutes. Those wishing to make donations can go to www.kids-with-cameras.org
As Kauffman expected, his relationship with Briski became a casualty of the project, but they remain friends.
The two recently returned from Calcutta where they showed the film to the youngsters. “It was hard for them, because it is almost impossible to get out of the brothel. Girls are almost destined to become prostitutes and the boys to become pimps and drug dealers. But we hope we’ve started to change this pattern one child at a time. They will go on to help other kids.
“So much of this has been incredible,” Kauffman added. “People come out of this movie changed. In the end this is a love story about these kids.”
Dave Lavalle is the assistant director of URI’s Department of Communications.
