Ruhi and Ankita are two young, beautiful women competing in a Bombay beauty pageant for the title of Miss India; winning would give them access to a lucrative career in the beauty industry, one of few opportunities for women in their patriarchal society. At the other end of India’s cultural spectrum, Prachi attends a Durgha Vahini camp run by a group of Hindu fundamentalists, where young women are given lessons on gun use, along with fitness training and spiritual teaching, with the aim of protecting Hinduism and the old India. Winner of the award for Best Documentary at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, director Nisha Pahuja’s film smartly juxtaposes these two extremes of Indian society to examine what it means to be a woman in modern India, where the tension between Westernization and preserving the old culture clashes at regular intervals. In English, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati with English subtitles.
In Person: Director Nisha Pahuja.