The World Before Her
TFI Suppport
Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund 2011 Spotlighting Women Documentary Award
TFI Screening Series 2012
Logline
The World Before Her asks: Beauty Pageants -- passé in the West -- but in India, where women remain second-class citizens, can they actually be empowering? The World Before Her follows two converging story lines--that of the girls who want to become Miss India, and that of the forces that want the pageant banned.
Nisha Pahuja
Director
Nisha Pahuja is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, researcher and writer. She recently co-wrote and directed Diamond Road, a three part series on the global diamond trade which explores the diverse realities of people whose lives revolve around this gem - from the impoverished miners of Sierra Leone to the wealthy dealers of New York. The series has been broadcast internationally to excellent reviews and received the 2008 Gemini award for best documentary series. The feature version of Diamond Road premiered at IDFA in 2007. Pahuja's Bollywood Bound, about a quartet of NRIs who travel to India to make it big in Bollywood, screened at numerous film festivals and was widely telecast around the world. It was nominated for a Gemini in 2002. Her print writing has appeared in Elle magazine and various anthologies. She has recently done some writing for filmmakers Deepa Mehta and David Hamilton.
Ed Barreveld
Producer
Ed Barreveld has been making films since 1986 when he first joined Canada's Oscar-winning National Film Board's Ontario Studio. He has been an independent filmmaker since 1996, producing mostly point of view, auteur driven documentaries for broadcasters such as the CBC, BBC, A&E, and TVAsahi. In 2000, Barreveld co-founded Storyline Entertainment Inc. and produced the award winning feature documentaries Aftermath: The Remnants of War and Shipbreakers. In 2004, Barreveld became the sole principal of Storyline Entertainment. That same year, Storyline released Bruce & Me (an Australian-Canadian co-production) and Whale of a Tale, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Barreveld's projects Hitler's Canadians and The Secret of the Snake Goddess (a Canada/Germany/Greece co-production) aired in 2007 and his Gemini winning feature documentary Tiger Spirit premiered at Hot Docs 2008. 2009 saw the release of It's a Teen's World: Wired for Sex, Lies and Power Trips, and My Toxic Baby (a 2009 Toronto International Film Festival selection). Resilience: Stories of Black Single Mothers, The Market and The Real M*A*S*H will be released in 2010. Barreveld is based in Toronto, Canada.
Cornelia Principe
Producer
Cornelia has been working in documentary production for over 15 years, starting out as a broadcaster, and then moving to independent producer and director. Currently in production on the one-off Grinder, recent projects include the feature The Rise and Fall of the Grumpy Burger, which premiered at Hot Docs 2008 and the 2008 Gemini award-winning (Best Documentary Series) Diamond Road, which she Co-produced for TVOntario, History Television, Discovery Times and Arte/ZDF. Other credits include: Producer for PTV Productions on the series Resolutions for Discovery Health and The Life Channel; Directed and Co-produced Poverty, Chastity, Obedience, with Producer Andrea Nemtin in co-production with the NFB; Co-produced Divorce What I See with Producer/ Director Sun-Kyung Yi which premiered at Hot Docs 2001; and worked with Emmy award-winning Producer/ Director Shelley Saywell on several of her acclaimed documentaries including, A Child's Century of War which was short-listed for an Oscar and Legacy of Terror. From 1993-1997 Cornelia was the Associate Producer for TVO's social-political documentary strands The View From Here and Human Edge.