Ekrem Heydo was born in 1973 in Serekaniye in Kurdish Syria. In 1995 he came to Germany for political reasons, fighting for official recognition as a political refugee for four years. After his training in the field of cinematography and editing in Hannover, Heydo completed his directing studies at the Ruhrakademie in Dortmund. Ekrem Heydo has been based in Berlin since 2006. For his first documentary, Halabja - The Lost Children, he won several international awards. At the Maxim Gorki Theatre, he presented his film My Paradise as part of the War or Peace Festival in 2018.