The fight against the Islamic State has been given the Hollywood-style revenge thriller treatment in Halkawt Mustafa’s “No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman,” as revealed by the film’s first teaser trailer.
The feature — which will have it world premiere out of competition at the Venice International Film Festival next month — follows a Kurdish-Norwegian female sniper who returns to Mosul in Iraq during the height of ISIS‘ deadly rule, driven by both vengeance and the desperate hope of rescuing her imprisoned younger sister. The teaser features explosions, destruction and deep tensions as the young soldier goes back to the violence she survived, offering a very different narrative retelling of the ISIS story to what’s previously been seen on screen.
“This is a poetic portrait of a woman warrior who refused to bow to darkness,” Mustafa previously told Variety.
Rising Kurdish star Avan Jamal (“The Exam”) plays the lead, while Norwegian actor Thorbjørn Harr (“The Tunnel,” “22 July”) also stars.
“No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman” marks Kurdish/Norwegian filmmaker Mustafa’s fourth feature film and comes following his 2023 documentary “Hiding Saddam Hussein, delving further into Iraq’s modern history and exploring how the former president evaded capture following his ousting from power.
“No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman” is also rooted in Mustafa’s own encounters with several women who fought against ISIS, and was inspired by the courage of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist Nadia Murad, who was abducted by the terrorist group during the Yazidi genocide of 2014.
Mustafa wrote and directed “No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman” and also produces through his Norway-based Hene Films AS banner, alongside Janne Hjeltnes and John M. Jacobsen. Rome-based sales company True Colours recently boarded the title.
See the teaser for “No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman” below.
