Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Free Documentaries


I recently saw the documentary Born into Brothels about a photojournalist who begins a project to examine the lives of women working as prostitutes in the Red Light district of Calcutta, but begins to teach photography to their kids when they show an interest in her camera. The documentary is intended to hand authorship over to the kids as it records how they capture their world “as they see it.” I found a good review if anyone is interested in learning more about the film’s accomplishments and shortcomings with respect to that goal.

As I was looking for reviews, I also came across a website that I was really excited to find – freedocumentaries.org.

You can watch Born into Brothels free (and legally) on this website, along with over 100 other both known and more obscure documentaries. The website’s founders write, “At freedocumentaries.org we strongly believe that in order to have a true democracy, there has to be a free flow of easily accessible information.” This is their effort to assist that process.

“The more people that know what's going on in the world, the better off the world will be.” – freedocumentaries.org

2 comments:

the COOL class said...

I think this website is really great, I wish it was better known. Having a platform like this is advantageous both to the people creating these documentaries and the people who want access to them. It seems that one of the hurdles for alternative media is distribution and publicity, so to have an easily accessible place for documentaries to be shown is wonderful. I plan on watching several documentaries right after finishing this post.

-Lindsay

Kalu said...

i recommend wathcing a free documentaries on humanrestore.com .... there are very educational