Investigating Paradise
Synopsis
Young Algerian journalist Nedjma is investigating Islamic accounts of paradise. She is particularly interested in the descriptions used by Salafi preachers to recruit young Algerian men as jihadists. She and her colleague Mustapha find a number of disturbing, richly embellished video sermons and decide to explore the phenomenon in more detail. Travelling through the country, she has conversations with numerous people including astute intellectuals, naïve young men, enlightened religious scholars and political activists. It becomes clear that globalisation has contributed to what has now become an unbridled market for religion. Paradise has become a desirable commodity, expensively promoted by Wahhabis who are engaged in a struggle to impose theirs as the correct reading of the Koran, namely: sex and drugs are forbidden on earth but in heaven there are women and there is wine. Interweaving dramatised black-and-white scenes with documentary interviews, Merzak Allouache, a French director with an Algerian background, creates a multi-layered analysis of the dangers that emanate from Salafism and Salafi interpretations of the Koran.
Credits
Director (1)
Production and distribution (3)
- Executive Producer : Les Asphofilms
- Foreign production company : Baya Films
- French distribution : Zootrope Films
Full credits (8)
- Executive Producers : Bahia Allouache, Merzak Allouache
- Screenwriters : Bahia Allouache, Merzak Allouache
- Director of Photography : Hocine Hadjali
- Music Composer : Yahia Bouchaala
- Assistant Director : Amine Kabbes
- Editor : Bahia Allouache
- Sound Recordist : Amine Teggar
- Press Attaché (film) : Stanislas Baudry
Media Gallery
Technical details
- Type : Feature film
- Genres : Documentary
- Production language : French
- Coproducer countries : France, Algeria
- Original French-language productions : Unspecified
- Production year : 2016
- French release : 17/01/2018
- Runtime : 2 h 15 min
- Current status : Released
- Visa number : 146.985
- Approval :
- Color type : Color
- Aspect ratio : 1.85
- Audio format : Dolby 5.1
News & awards
Selections (4)
Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF)
United States, 2017
African Pictures
Contemporary World Cinema
