I have to recommend Born Into Brothels (2005 Academy Award, Best Documentary). Very moving film (and companion book) about the power of photography to change lives. This film more than any other made me realize how the art of photography can transcend the technology and even the image, by producing life-altering experiences for those holding the camera... even when they are children.
Originally, the film was to be a documentary of the red-light district in Calcutta, but one of the producers got sidetracked when she met the young children of the prostitutes. Vibrant and intelligent but without a future, the kids immediately became the focus of the film. They were given cameras, taught the fundamentals of composition and exposure, then turned loose to photograph the world around them. Soon it became apparent that these children had found confidence, expression and fulfillment in the act of taking pictures... and possibly a more hopeful future as well.
As interesting as the film itself is what has happened since. A scholarship fund from print sales kept the kids going as they finished school and may put some of them thru college as well (one young man has been accepted at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU), and the program which came to be called Kids With Cameras, has gone on to Cairo, Haiti and Jerusalem.
http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/bornintobrothels/
