The Smell of Paradise

An Islamic world tour is documented here by visits to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Qatar, to highlight events post 9/11, including footage taken a few years before. The film above all endeavors to shed light on the process leading young men to the radical choice of self-sacrifice, becoming human bombs. The directors of the film traveled for ten years throughout these countries under heavy Muslim influence, and met with clan leaders, mullahs, and other strict followers of the Koran. The Smell of Paradise was shot in Chechnya, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Qatar and Afghanistan, in places that have become white spaces on the map of Western journalism. It takes the viewer not only into a different world, but also to another time. The result is a unique glance into the land of the jihad, the mental and physical battle that drives the Islamic fundamentalist movement.