In the Flesh (2003)

In the Flesh: three lives in prostitution is a 2003 independent documentary by Bishakha Datta about the lives of three Indian sex workers, written for a family audience. It is a low-budget film set in Calcutta and Mumbai that describes the everyday life of its subjects.

It was filmed in 2000, and released in India in 2002, before an international release in 2003. The subjects of the documentary were chosen with help from the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (a Calcutta sex worker collective) and at Calcutta's Sex Workers Mela, an annual event held in the city's Salt Lake Stadium that attracts over 10,000 people a day.

Synopsis

In The Flesh follows three sex workers, Shabana (who works the highways near Mumbai), Bhaskar (a transgendered hijra person who sells sex to men in Calcutta), and Uma, a former theater actress who lives in a Calcutta brothel. The film follows their daily routines, from picking up customers and sex to their private social lives to violence and activism.