Hayder Helo is an Iraqi director, screenwriter, and actor born in Baghdad in 1985. After completing his studies in film and acting at the Baghdad Academy of Fine Arts, he co-wrote and starred in Underexposure (2005). Soon after, he left the unrest in Baghdad for Damascus and then Cairo, where he worked on the award-winning feature film In the Last Days of the City (2016), both behind the camera and as one of its main characters. Since arriving in Belgium in 2011, Hayder has co-written and starred in several European short and feature films, including the multi-award-winning Baghdad Messi (2012). He also co-founded the Arabic-European production house Anekdote while working on his first feature-length documentary.