‘No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman’ Teaser Unleashes a Female Sniper Against ISIS

A new film heading to the Venice International Film Festival is putting a woman at the center of a story about the fight against ISIS.

Halkawt Mustafa’s ‘No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman’ will have its world premiere out of competition at Venice next month. The first teaser gives viewers a look at the action thriller, which follows a Kurdish-Norwegian sniper who returns to Mosul while the city is under ISIS control.

The story follows the soldier as she goes back into a place connected to the violence she once survived. She has two reasons for returning. She wants revenge, but she is also trying to save her younger sister, who has been taken prisoner.

The teaser, as described by Variety, shows a city caught in chaos. There are explosions, destroyed buildings and tense scenes as the main character moves through a dangerous environment controlled by ISIS. The film appears to mix the scale of a war movie with the personal story of a woman fighting to save someone close to her.

Mustafa has said the movie was inspired by real women who fought against ISIS. His own experiences with some of those women helped shape the story.

“This is a poetic portrait of a woman warrior who refused to bow to darkness,” Mustafa previously told Variety.

Avan Jamal, known for ‘The Exam,’ plays the lead role. Norwegian actor Thorbjørn Harr, who has appeared in ‘The Tunnel’ and ‘22 July,’ also stars.

The film is also closely connected to Iraq’s recent history. Mustafa previously directed the 2023 documentary ‘Hiding Saddam Hussein,’ which explored how former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein avoided capture after being removed from power.

For his latest film, Mustafa has turned his attention to another major chapter in the region’s history. The story is fictional, but it draws from the experiences of women who fought against ISIS and those who survived its violence.

One major source of inspiration was Nadia Murad, the Yazidi human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Murad was kidnapped by ISIS during the Yazidi genocide in 2014 and later became one of the world’s most prominent voices for survivors of sexual violence and genocide.

That real-world connection gives the film a more personal angle. Instead of focusing only on military battles or political events, ‘No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman’ aims to show the conflict through the eyes of a woman who has already experienced its horrors and chooses to fight back.

Mustafa wrote and directed the film and is also producing it through his Norway-based Hene Films banner. Janne Hjeltnes and John M. Jacobsen are also producers. Rome-based sales company True Colours is handling international sales.

The film will now head to Venice, where audiences will get their first full look at Mustafa’s latest project. Based on the teaser, ‘No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman’ is shaping up as an intense revenge story with a strong focus on survival, family and the women who stood against ISIS.

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