Surely a typical misogynist ISIS saying. I suppose it means if a woman kills an ISIS warrior that unfortunate might as well forget about paradise and the seven virgins! Moralistic greed with seven and misogynist fussiness demanding they be virgins!
Vyan (Avan Jamal) is a sniper for the Peshmerga Kurdish security forces in Northern Iraq fighting ISIS including supporting NATO forces. It is 2016 and she has over 100 kills.
A Kurdish immigrant to Norway with her younger sister Helina and her parents. On vacation in Northern Iraq the parents are murdered by ISIS and both her and Helina are kidnapped by sex slavers and sold at auction to ISIS men.
Vyan escapes by murdering her abusive captor, joins the Peshmerga and starts her search for Helina.
After assassinating an ISIS soldier who had chained young teen Dlvin to his bed, Dlvin informs Vyan her sister Helina is the “wife” of the “Swedish Sniper”.
Vyan is injured while valiantly destroying an ISIS armoured car and evacuated back to a hospital in Norway.
The PST (Norwegian Police Security Service) offers Vyan a new identity and a promise to not prosecute her for contravening Norwegian law preventing its citizens in participating in foreign conflicts. If she fails to take the deal she will be prosecuted.
Vyan returns to Northern Iraq for the Peshmerga and laboriously hunts down the Swedish Sniper to rescue her younger sister.
Vyan’s philosophy is to track down one sniper and you’ll find the rest of them.
Perched high atop a building overlooking Old Mosul she locates an ISIS sniper and liquidates him overhearing references to the Swedish Sniper being nearby.
The ISIS snipers in Old Mosul help secure the imprisonment of some 300,000 city residents more or less starving them to death. Any movement in the open draws sniper fire. A veritable turkey shoot.
An exact locate of the Swedish Sniper invigorates Vyan on a daring escape mission crawling out in the open under a tarp centimeters at a time to the “Green Hotel” where the Swedish Sniper is firing away. After being wounded and killing three ISIS soldiers pursuing her she confronts the Swedish Sniper.
Vyan is not simply a sniper firing from rooftops but a brave and skilled soldier in close combat situations not to be be underestimated. ISIS had put a bounty on her head for a million dollars.
An interesting foray into the life and mind of snipers, the sex slave trade catering to ISIS soldiers, the presence of foreign converts in ISIS and the sheer vicious misogyny of ISIS.
While the violence and rampant ISIS misogyny might be difficult for some to view the performance of Avan Jamal as Vyan is remarkable.
A classic revenge genre film.
Directed by Halkawt Mustafa.
Official screening at the Venice Film Festival 7September2026.
RKS INTERNATIONAL FILM RATING: 93/100
This Norwegian, Iraqi, UAE and Swedish film is directed by Halkawt Mustafa.
