"No Paradise if Killed by a Woman", a Kurdish-language film by director Halkawt Mustafa, had its world premiere at the 83rd Venice Film Festival. The screening took place on 10 September 2026 in the Sala Grande, the festival's main auditorium.
The film is also Iraq's official entry in the International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards. The ceremony is in March 2027.
A Kurdish-language film in the Sala Grande
World premieres at the Venice Film Festival are held in the Sala Grande. The language of the film shown there on 10 September 2026 is Kurdish.
A language being heard in a room of that size is a record in itself. Subtitles may be in other languages; the language spoken on screen is Kurdish. The name of the auditorium, the date and the title of the film are all on the record — that is where the weight of this report sits.
Kurdish dress on the red carpet
Before the screening, the crew walked the red carpet in Kurdish dress. That is what the sources record. Who walked, and which region the clothing belongs to, is not stated in them, and so is not stated here.
A festival red carpet is the first frame seen before the film itself. What is worn in that frame has a name and a place.
What the film is about
The film follows a woman peshmerga who enters Mosul, then held by the Islamic State group, to rescue her younger sister. That is the extent of what the sources say about the subject.
This is a report about cinema. The film's running time, its cast and its production budget are not in the sources available to us. Nor is whether it received any award at the festival, what critics wrote, or how it stands in the Oscar race. What is not known is written as not known.
Iraq's official entry
In the International Feature Film category each country submits a single film to the Academy. The film Iraq submitted for the 99th Academy Awards is this Kurdish-language one.
Being a country's official entry is not the same as being nominated; they are separate stages. What is known today is this: a Kurdish-language film stands in the file for the March 2027 ceremony under Iraq's name.
Two ends of the same thread
What this site follows through football and what is happening here are the same thing: a language standing under its own name, on its own stage. The teaching positions opened for Kurmanji in Amed do that in the classroom; the Venice premiere does it on screen. The Kurdish football section is the weekly record of the same thread.