Kurdish film on female Peshmerga sniper premieres at Venice
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – A Kurdish-language war thriller following a female Peshmerga sniper searching for her sister after the Islamic State group’s assault on northern Iraq on Tuesday premiered at the Venice International Film Festival.
No Paradise If You Are Killed By A Woman, directed by Norwegian-Kurdish filmmaker Halkawt Mustafa, had its world premiere in the Venice Open section, screening out of competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.
The 110-minute production stars Avan Jamal as Viyan, a Kurdish-Norwegian woman whose life is transformed by the war against the Islamic State group (ISIS).
The story begins near Mosul in 2016, where Viyan, now a Peshmerga sniper, searches for her younger sister Helin, who disappeared after the ISIS advance through the region.
Flashbacks trace the family’s ordeal to 2014, when the sisters were captured and their parents killed. After escaping, Viyan joins a Peshmerga unit led by a female commander and develops into a skilled sniper before returning to Iraq years later to continue searching for her sister.
The film is inspired by Mustafa’s encounters with Kurdish female fighters and was developed around the story of a female Peshmerga sniper, according to the Norwegian Film Institute. Its story also draws inspiration from the experiences of women who suffered under ISIS, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, who was abducted during the 2014 Yazidi genocide.
The Venice Biennale lists the film as a Kurdish-language co-production involving Norway and Iraqi Kurdistan, with Kanar Sarchl, Kader Jalal and Norwegian actor Thorbjørn Harr also starring.
The film has already gained further international attention after Iraq selected it as its official submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, days before its Venice premiere.
A recent review described the film as a tense and visually dynamic war thriller, praising its choreographed combat scenes and Jamal’s restrained performance, while arguing that its feminist and political message is sometimes delivered too bluntly.
The film’s title refers to the extremist belief exploited in the story that a fighter killed by a woman would be denied paradise, turning that ideology into a central element of Viyan’s resistance against ISIS.
Mustafa, who was born in Sulaymaniyah and previously directed El Clásico and the documentary Hiding Saddam Hussein, has built the film around the experiences of Kurdish women who took up arms against ISIS during the group’s devastating campaign across Iraq and Syria.