A Balloon for Allah: Islam and Women

When Norwegian-Turkish filmmaker Nefise was a child, she used to send balloon letters to Allah. Now she has decided to send a new balloon, to challenge the role of women in the Muslim culture. Following her grandmother’s “Sufi” path, she embarks on a quest to discover the essence of Islam. The film moves between her actual journey and her dreams. She experiences the diversity of Cairo, Istanbul and Oslo by having tea with Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi, conversing with 90-year-old author Gamal Al-Banna about his life and meeting a young Islamic extremist. As she strolls through the maze of doors, it dawns on her that maybe Islam is not the only source of the problem – that there may be a link between the three Abrahamic religions and the oppression of women.