Tahqiq fel djenna
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. (Festival information)
A young female Algerian journalist is investigating various Islamic accounts of paradise. This project shows the power of theological concepts and the influences they have on daily life, as well as displaying some of the fragmentations and diversities of Islamic religion. Merzak Allouache's film warns against the danger of interpreting paradise into a commodity where the cost is the life of young men and women.