‘Extraction’ Meets ‘Man on Fire’ in Explosive New Trailer for Action Revenge Thriller

No Paradise If Killed By a Woman is a new film from writer-director Halkawt Mustafa. It stars Avan Jamal (The Exam) as a Kurdish-Norwegian sniper named Vyan who returns to the Iraqi city of Mosul, where she grew up, while it is under the control of the extremist militant group ISIS. That means the film is set sometime between June 2014 and July 2017, when ISIS actually did have control of Mosul as well as other parts of Iraq. Vyan is here to get revenge on the militants who have taken over her home, but also to save her younger sister from ISIS control.

Halkawt Mustafa wrote and directed No Paradise If Killed By a Woman after having conversations with women who actually did fight against ISIS. He was also inspired by the work of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, who was kidnapped by the group in 2014 before going on to become a human rights activist. “This is a poetic portrait of a woman warrior who refused to bow to darkness,” Mustafa told Variety.

The movie fits neatly into Mustafa’s greater body of work. In addition to his feature The Classic and his 2023 documentary Hiding Saddam Hussein, Mustafa explored the world of female Kurdish fighters in the 2015 documentary The Women ISIS Fears. Now he’s returning to the subject in the form of a narrative film. Check out the first teaser for the movie below:

The brief teaser is very atmospheric, with quick shots of Vyan running across the landscape, setting up her sniper’s nest, and firing off a shot. There are also glimpses of her staggering through Mosul itself, limping and bloody but still going, as well as a couple explosions.

The intense action recalls something like the Extraction franchise, while the plot element of Vyan being here to rescue her sister puts us in the mind of something like Man on Fire. There’s also the obvious comparison to be made to other war movies about the Iraq War, from The Hurt Locker to American Sniper. But while those films highlighted American characters in Iraq, No Paradise If Killed By a Woman will revolve around a native Kurdish woman.

No Paradise If Killed By a Woman also stars Thorbjørn Harr, Kanar Sarchl, and Kader Jalal. It will premiere out of competition at the Venice International Film Festival in September. No wider release date has been set.