The World Before Her

Winner of Best Documentary at Tribeca Film Festival 2012, The World Before Her follows two young women on divergent paths in rapidly modernising India - one wants to win the Miss India beauty pageant, the other is a fierce Hindu Nationalist undertaking military training and preparing to kill for her beliefs. 

"Twenty hand-picked contestants for the Miss India pageant enter an intense month-long beauty boot camp in Bombay. Winning the coveted title means instant stardom, a lucrative career and freedom from the constraints of a patriarchal society. In another corner of India, young girls undergo physical combat training and learn how to be obedient Hindu women at a camp run by the women’s branch of the militant fundamentalist movement. As massive change sweeps through India, control over women and their behaviour is at the epicentre of a violent clash between Western modernity and age-old patriarchal traditions." (HotDocs Film Festival Vancouver)

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