ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq has selected Kurdish director Halkawt Mustafa’s No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman as its official submission for Best International Feature Film at the upcoming Academy Awards (Oscars), the country’s selection committee announced on Friday.
The Iraqi National Selection Committee for the Academy Awards, mandated by the culture ministry’s Department of Cinema and Theatre, said the decision was reached unanimously after an evaluation of eligible submissions.
The committee praised the film’s “mature directorial vision” and the integration of its visual and technical elements, saying it presents local narratives with the artistic quality needed to compete internationally.
Meanwhile, Namiq Hawrami, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Ministry of Culture, told Rudaw’s Malik Mohammed that the ministry fully backs the film.
“We fully support all artistic work by artists from Kurdistan, especially when a Kurdish film serves as an ambassador for Iraqi cinema and is nominated for international festivals. We are thrilled and consider it an outstanding achievement,” Hawrami said.
“We will provide whatever support we can to champion any Kurdish film on the international festival circuit,” he added.
No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman tells the story of a young Peshmerga sniper who secretly infiltrates the Islamic State (ISIS) in Mosul to rescue her younger sister.
Mustafa interviewed a number of female Peshmerga fighters who fought against ISIS while developing the film. Its title draws on a belief attributed to some ISIS militants that being killed by a woman would deprive them of martyrdom and entry into paradise.
The film stars Kurdish actress Avan Jamal alongside Norwegian actor Thorbjørn Harr and is a co-production involving Norway, Sweden, France, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and the Kurdistan Region.
Mustafa, who is originally from the Kurdistan Region and resides in Norway, gained international recognition with his 2016 feature film El Clasico, which was screened in more than 56 countries and won several international awards.
His previous work, Hiding Saddam Hussein, became the highest-grossing documentary in Arab box-office history. The film tells the story of Iraqi farmer Ala Namiq, who hid former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for 235 days while US forces searched for him. Rudaw Media Network was a co-producer of the documentary.
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