Opening & Closing Nights

Our festival always begins and ends with a bang. With many filmmakers attending from Australia and abroad our guestlist is extensive so tickets to the public are extremely limited.

Gala Tickets are on sale now at www.byroncentre.com.au.

You’ll get the star treatment at our Red Carpet events. Both of these Gala nights will be catered by The Beautiful Feast and 100 Mile Table. Their menus are created using primarily local organic and free range ingredients highlighting the best local seasonal produce this region has to offer. From Brunswick oysters, Jordans’ Organic Breads, Alstonville Chicken, Cooper Shoot Tomatoes and Byron Bay Pork

Big Thanks goes to our sponsor – Cheese Please who will augment the menu with a selection from their range, and to our beverage sponsors – Award-winning Fox Creek Wines.

OPENING NIGHT Friday March 1st

The Red Carpet Gala Opening Night will once again set the scene for this year’s spectacular ten-night, nine-day international film festival.

The World Before Her (2012)
USA
1:30:00
Directed by: Nisha Pahuja

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. Winning the coveted title means instant stardom, a lucrative career path and, for some girls, freedom from the constraints of a patriarchal society. But as the popularity of pageants has exploded, so have the controversies surrounding them. Through the 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 Westernisation of India.

Weaving together the seemingly opposing stories of the Miss India beauty pageant and a fundamentalist Hindu camp for girls, director Nisha Pahuja illuminates the situation of women across contemporary India, drawing surprising parallels in the way women are perceived and the opportunities that are afforded them in both modernising and traditional cultures. “The Word Before Her” is a riveting, thoughtful profile of the fundamental contradictions of a country in transition.

Gala Party to follow upstairs – catered by The Beautiful Feast & 100 Mile Table

GALA PARTY Saturday March 10th

With Sunday 10th March the final day of film festivities, be sure to join us as we wind-down the 2012 BBFF with another Red Carpet Gala Party on Saturday 9th. A handful of our top awards will be handed out, including the big one for Best Film.

This red carpet event acknowledges and celebrates the creative spirit of all festival participants – including you, our much-valued patrons and supporters.

Small Apartments (2012)
USA
1:37:00
Directed by: Jonas Akerlund

Starring: Matt Lucas, Johnny Knoxville, James Caan and Rebel Wilson

Inside his rundown, small apartment on the south side of Los Angeles, Franklin Franklin (Matt Lucas) dreams of spooning with his might alphorn deep in the tall grass beside a clear, alpine lake in the perfect nation of Switzerland. The only problem is, Franklin has just killed his landlord, Mr. Olivetti (Peter Stormare), and needs to figure out how to get away with it. Complicating Franklin’s plans are his neighbours: Tommy Balls (Johnny Knoxville), the slacker pot-head, Mr. Allspide (James Caan), the old, nosy, know-it-all who monitors everyone’s movements in the building, and Francine (Saffron Burrows) and Simone (Juno Temple), the hard-working MILF and her daughter – who’s nothing but hot, teenage trouble.

Franklin’s plan to dispose of Mr. Olivetti is not without its flaws and L.A. County Fire Investigator, Burt Walnut (Billy Chrystal), and a pair of bumbling detectives are close on Franklin’s heels. All the while, Franklin receives recorded “life-coaching” advice from his brother, Bernard (James Marsden), a resident of the local insane asylum. Bernard’s audiotapes are stuffed into envelopes with regular shipments of toenails and sound strangely like the teachings of world-renowned TV mental guru, Dr. Sage Mennox (Dolph Lundgren). Just when things look bleakest for Franklin, when there seems no way for his escape, Franklin gets a surprise he never saw coming. And suddenly, that advice from his looney-bin brother doesn’t sound so crazy after all.

Tickets at www.byroncentre.com.au.