Two years after his 2023 documentary Hiding Saddam Hussein investigated how former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein evaded capture after he was ousted from power, Kurdish/Norwegian filmmaker Harkaut Mustafa is delving into Iraq’s recent history.
Currently in post-production, If a Woman Kills You, There’s No Paradise, which jumps 10 years from the fall of Saddam to the rise of Islamic State. The drama follows a Norwegian Kurdish sniper who returns to the battlefield she once fled, driven by a desire for revenge and a desperate hope to rescue her sister, who is still imprisoned by ISIS in Mosul. Rising Kurdish star Avan Jamal (The Exam) stars in the film, which also stars Norwegian actor Thorbjorn Haar (The Tunnel, 22 July).
“This is a poetic portrait of a female warrior who refused to succumb to the darkness,” Mustafa told Variety.
The story is rooted in the filmmaker’s own encounters with several women who fought against ISIS, and was inspired by the courage of Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Nadia Murad, who was abducted by the terrorist group during the 2014 Yazidi genocide. “Her courage to share her story with the world was the guiding force behind this project,” he said.
Mustafa wrote and directed “If a Woman Kills Me,” which he also produced through his Norway-based Henne Films AS banner in collaboration with Janne Hernes and John M. Jacobsen. Discussions with overseas distributors and distributors are currently underway.
“Hide Saddam Hussein,” which bowed at the 2023 Red Sea Film Festival, saw Mustafa speaking to Alaa Namik, an Iraqi farmer who hid Hussein from U.S. forces for 235 days, spending much of that time in a specially dug spider hole. The film will become one of the highest-grossing documentary films in the Arab box office.
