8 September 2026
Vyan, a Kurdish-Norwegian Peshmerga sniper, returns to Mosul ten years after the ISIS attack that tore away her younger sister, who was never found. The discovery that she might still be alive prompts Vyan to take up arms once again, forcing her to confront the violence she lived through and the woman that very violence shaped her to be.
Born in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, in 1985, Halkawt Mustafa made his directorial debut in Norway with Red Heart (2011). His second feature, El Clásico (2015), received numerous international awards and represented Iraq in the race for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. In 2023, he directed the documentary Hiding Saddam Hussein. No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman stems from direct encounters with Kurdish female fighters and is inspired by the courage of Nadia Murad, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who was kidnapped by ISIS during the 2014 Yazidi genocide.
