Red Light to Limelight strikes a fine balance between the tragic stories of individual sex workers in Kolkata’s Kalighat red light neighborhood and the joyous community activity of filmmaking. Bipuljit Basu’s documentary follows CAM ON, a film production collective set up by these women and their children, as they conceptualize and shoot the (fictional) short film Nupur, blurring the lines between their reality and the artifice they’re engaging in. Basu told Documentary about the importance of community co-creation, gaining his subjects’ trust, and arriving at the film’s look. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.