Directed by: Nisha Pahuja
Producer: Cornelia Principe, Nisha Pahuja
Production company: Storyline Entertainment
Cinematography: Derek Rogers, Mrinal Desai
Editing: David Kazala
Music: Ken Myhr

Format: video
Running time: 90'

Synopsis
In the lobby of a modest Bombay hotel, 20 young women from across India arrive for an intense, month-long beauty boot camp. They are the hand-picked contestants for the Miss India pageant, the ultimate glamour event in a country that has gone mad for beauty contests. Through dramatic verite action and unprecedented behind-the-scenes access, The World Before Her sweeps back the curtain to reveal the intimate stories of young women determined to win the crown and the forces that oppose them. Hindu fundamentalists view pageants and their “international” beauty standards as immoral and a symbol of the rapid Westernization of India; protests are common. Yet amid pageant dazzle and heated rhetoric, filmmaker Nisha Pahuja ensures the faces and voices of India’s young women remain front stage centre. As the contestants move through beauty boot camp, Pahuja travels to another corner of India to visit an annual camp for young girls run by the Durgha Vahini, the women’s wing of the militant fundamentalist movement. The Indian government says these camps promote terrorism and is trying to ban them. Until now, they have never been filmed.

Awards and Festivals
Tribeca Film Festival 2012 – Best Documentary Feature

Hot Docs 2012 – Best Canadian Documentary Feature
Traverse City Film Festival 2012 – Best Foreign Film
Guanajuato Film Festival 2012 – Best Film
SilverDocs 2012

Directors Biography
Nisha Pahuja started off as a researcher for some of Canada’s brightest documentary talents and learned filmmaking under their mentorship. She co-wrote and directed Diamond Road, a three part series on the global diamond trade. The feature version of Diamond Road premiered at IDFA in 2007 as part of an OXFAM-Novib evening. Pahuja’s Bollywood Bound was screened at numerous film festivals and was widely telecast around the world. The World Before Her is her second film.

Location and screening schedule:
GRIÈ CINEMA, Wednesday, October 17th at 14.00
GRIÈ CINEMA, Wednesday, October 17th at 16.00
DOKUKINO KIC, Thursday, October 18th at 19.30