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Dar Salim was born on 18 August 1977 in Baghdad, Iraq. He is an actor and producer, known for Guy Ritchie's the Covenant (2023), Game of Thrones (2011) and The Devil's Double (2011).

Selim Bayraktar (born 17 June 1975) is an Iraqi-Turkish actor best known for his role as "Sumbul Aga" in Muhtesem Yüzyil. He received international recognition with his role in the Netflix original series Rise of Empires: Ottoman.

Bayraktar was born in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 1975, into a family of Iraqi Turkmen origin. As a child he began performing in gymnastic competitions. During the final days of the Iran-Iraq War, a body double of Sadam Hussein visited Bayraktar's schools in order to recruit boys into the army; when Bayraktar was chosen to serve in the army his family decided to smuggle him into Turkey. He started working at the Turkish State Theatre after graduating from Hacettepe University in 2000.

Sasson Gabay was born in Baghdad, Iraq. He is an actor, known for Rambo III (1988), The Band's Visit (2007) and Karaoke (2022).

Dulfi Al-Jabouri was born on 31 December 1990 in Baghdad, Iraq. He is an actor, known for A War (2015), Darkland (2017) and Dicte (2013).

Amrou Al-Kadhi was born on June 23, 1990, in London. They are a writer/director/performer, known for Little America (2020), The Watch (2020), Anemone (2018), Hollyoaks (1995), and Christopher Robin (2018) .

As a screenwriter, Amrou co-write the much lauded finale of Apple's Little America (2020), and is a writer on the BBC America adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, The Watch (2020).

Amrou is the writer/creator of "Targets," a horror in development with BBC Drama and Public Dreams Ltd. Amrou has other TV series in development, alongside ABC & FX Productions, NBC Universal and Playground / Endeavour Content. Amrou Al-Kadhi has two feature films in development - as writer/director, "Layla", with Film 4 & Fox Cub Films and "Oh, Molly" with BBC Films & Sarah Brocklehurst Productions. Amrou is also the author of "Life as a Unicorn: A Journey From Shame to Pride and Everything in Between," (Harper Collins), which is currently being adapted for screen.

Amrou is the writer/director of four short films that all share a focus on queer intersectional people of colour. The latest is Anemone (2018), created with BBC Films and Film London, a film about a non-binary teenager who expresses their non-binary identity through the magic of marine life. The second, [title=tt7140218], is a commission for Nowness, an exploration of how female-bodied drag queen Victoria Sin transforms social space through their drag - this gained official entry into the BFI London Film Festival. The third is an autobiographical short film, [title=tt6884552] - which explores the relationship between drag culture and Middle-Eastern femininity, and a genderqueer Arab boy's memory of their Muslim mother (screened at The London Short Film Festival, BFI Flare, LA Outfest, and distributed by Peccadillo Pictures). The fourth is an experimental short documentary commissioned by the BFI & BBC4, Clash (2017) , critiquing how period dramas erase the diverse reality of Britain. It is told through candid interviews with queer people of colour, alongside staged parodic period drama sequences. It was broadcast on BBC 4 on the 24th of September to 125k viewers, and is now available on BFI-player.

Amrou wrote and starred in the short film Nightstand (2015), executive produced by Stephen Fry and distributed by Peccadillo Pictures theatrically and on DVD. The film has screened at festivals globally, including the BAFTA recognised LSFF and Oscar qualifying Athens International Film and Video Festival, and LGBT Festivals from Paris to Melbourne.

As a performer, Amrou has been acting professional since the age of 13, and recent credits include the upcoming Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), The Souvenir: Part II (2021), Christopher Robin (2018), and The Cleansing Hour (2019). Their solo drag show, Glamrou: From Quran to Queen, premieres at the Soho Theatre later this year.

Saddam Hussein was a bloody and brutal dictator who kept his country of Iraq at war almost constantly after assuming power in 1979. At least one million people died due to the machinations of Saddam. After his regime was toppled by the U.S. invasion of 2003, he wound up on a gallows, his life terminated at the end of a hangman's noose.

Saddam invaded neighboring Iran in 1980 and waged war for seven years and 11 months, making it the longest conventional war in the 20th Century. Saddam had hoped to take advantage of what he perceived as the chaos of the Iranian revolution to settle border disputes and suppress his own Shi'ite Muslim population. (Iran is predominantly Shi'ite while Hussein was a Sunni Muslim.) The war ended in a stalemate with approximately 500,000 Iraqis and 400,000 Iranians dead. Both sides, major oil producers, suffered economic losses of half-a-trillion dollars. Saddam used poison gas against Iranian troops, an atrocity even Adolf Hitler didn't engage on the battlefields of World War II.

Beginning in 1986 and continuing through 1989, Saddam launched a deliberate campaign of genocide against the Kurds in northern Iraq. The campaign also targeted areas populated by other minorities, including Assyrians and Jews. In 1988, his forces launched a poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja that killed as many as 5,000 people and injured as many as 10,000. In all, Saddam's three-year-long genocide against the Kurds and other minorities claimed as many as 182,000 lives.

In 1990, the war-monger Saddam invaded Kuwait with the intention of looting and annexing the oil-rich country. An international coalition was put together by the first President George Bush and freed Kuwait but left Saddam in power. His son President George W. Bush put together a second coalition army dominated by American and British forces that invaded Iraq in March 2003 to depose the dictator.

The invasion was launched on the pretext that he possessed weapons of mass destruction and was in league with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that had launched the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Both charges were false, but it led to Saddam's capture in December 2003. He was subsequently tried and executed by the Iraqi interim government for the killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites in 1982. His death sentence was carried out on December 30, 2006.

Rauand Taleb

Born in 1992 in Sulaimanyia in the area of the autonomous region of Kurdistan and fled to Germany with his family in 1998, Rauand Taleb began training at the acting school in Nuremberg at the age of 18.

Even while there, he made his first appearances in Philipp Kadelbach's "Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter (2013)," among others, which won an international Emmy Award. Engagements for ZDF, BR, SRF, WDR, SAT1, as well as numerous appearances in short films followed. In 2015, Rauand Taleb was in front of the camera for the episode lead role as a young Syrian refugee in Tatort: Schutzlos and for the ZDF series Die Spezialisten - Im Namen der Opfer. At the end of 2018, the German public broadcaster ARD aired the Frankfurt Tatort, in which Rauand played an important role.

In 2015/2016, Rauand Taleb was on stage for the Broadway play "Geächtet (Disgraced)" by Ayad Akhtar at the Berlin Theater am Kurfürstendamm. For the 2017/2018 season, the Deutsche Oper Berlin signed him. For the play "The Merchant of Venice" he played the young boy Tadzio. In addition to his work as an actor, he is also involved in directing and staging and has already received various awards for his short films.

In 2014, he was also a jury member of the "German Human Rights Film Award" in Nuremberg.

His biggest success to date was in 4 Blocks. A hit series produced by TNT series, which received more than 14 times awards in 2017. In it, he embodies the continuous role Zeki.

Professor Jameel Sadik "Jim" Al-Khalili OBE is a British theoretical physicist, Author, respected BBC presenter and frequent commentator about science in British media. He holds the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics and Chair in the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey, and previously held the position as President of the British Humanist Association (promoting Humanism) between January 2013 and January 2016.

Farhat (also sometimes known as Florence) Ezekiel Nadira, born on December 5, 1932, was a Baghdadi Jew, hailing from Nagpada, South Mumbai, a predominantly Muslim and Jewish locality. At the tender age of 19, she literally stormed her way into Bollywood with the movie The Savage Princess (1952) opposite Dilip Kumar, the reigning heart-throb of the times.

Nadira was chosen mostly for her glowing skin, sharp features, European looks as Khan wanted to dub The Savage Princess (1952) into English as well.

The feisty and boisterous Nadira not only took leading roles, but also went on to accept negative roles, for example the one in "Elaan", and the one in Shree 420 (1955) containing the song "Mud mud ke na dekh mud mud ke...", which continues to be popular even now. And who can forget "Ajeeb dastaan hai yeb..." from Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai (1960), picturized on Nadira, Raaj Kumar and Meena Kumari.

Nadira thus reigned supreme in the 1950s and 1960s, usually as a vamp. Thereafter, she appeared in character roles where she played the mother, an aunt, or older woman, adding poise and dignity to these roles. And it was in Julie (1975), in which she played the leading lady's (Laxmi) Anglo-Indian mother that she bagged the award for "Best Supporting Actress".

She went on to play character roles even in Tele-serials, amongst which "Thoda Sa Aasman" has been rated as one of the best television performances ever, in which she plays the wife of Bollywood veteran actor, Shreeram Lagoo.

Despite of her success and popularity, she led a lonely life. Two marriages ended in divorce. Her two siblings, both brothers, had migrated to the United States and Israeli respectively, and she lived alone in her South Mumbai flat in Vasundhara building.

She was known for a small but well maintained library of books ranging from the works of Shakespeare, Adolf Hitler, Vivekananda, World War II, Judaism, and Philosophy, which friends and neighbors used to borrow from time to time.

Shobha, her maid, was the one who took care of her, especially when she entertained friends like Tanuja, Nimmi, Shyama, Deepti Naval, and model-turned-actor Milind Soman, who acted with her in a tele-serial "Margaritta", visited her frequently.

She always celebrated her Birthday on December 5 with mostly children from the neighborhood and served them biryani and cakes.

Nadira suffered from a variety of illnesses, including tubercular meningitis, & paralysis. Her bout with heavy alcoholic drinking also resulted in alcoholic liver disorder.

She was hospitalized on January 2nd and following a cardiac seizure died on Wednesday January 8th at Bhatia Hospital in Mumbai. She was 74. She will always be remembered by her fans worldwide.

Born in Iraq and immigrated to the states. Sarab has two sisters and one brother. She speaks 3 languages. She graduated from Albion College MI, class of '91, majoring in Communication Studies and English. She resides in Lathrup Village, Michigan.

Howard holds his Master of Arts in Cinema from the University of Southern California. He was one of the top students in the cinema department, winning the coveted George Cukor Award. Howard is also a graduate of the London School of Film Technique and has a Bachelor of Arts with honors in English literature. He speaks several languages, including French.

Avedis made his mark writing and directing many motion picture box office hits, including a French-style romantic thriller that received an Academy Award nomination for best theme song. Avedis is a member of the Writers Guild of America West.

He and his wife, Marlene, presently divide their time between Southern California and Paris, France. Hotel Paradise is his first novel, and he is now working on his second.

Atheer Adel was born on 24 June 1985 in Baghdad, Iraq. He is an actor, known for Homeland (2011), A Hologram for the King (2016) and Nobel (2016).

Khalood Bojanowski was born in Basra, Iraq. She is married to Jerry Bojanowski. They have two children.

Fajer Al-Kaisi was born on 7 May 1979 in Iraq. He is an actor, known for Jellystone (2021), Future Man (2017) and The Report (2019).

Alexander Zale (aka J. Zakkai) has performed a variety of compelling roles while working with cutting-edge theatre ensembles, playwrights, and directors. He began his acting career in the role of Solly in 1959 with the Living Theatre's international hit, The Connection, by Jack Gelber, and went on to play George Garga in Brecht's In the Jungle of Cities and Rico Veri in Pirandello's Tonight We Improvise. Following two European tours with the Living Theatre, he stayed in Italy to work with Vittorio Gassman's company, Teatro Popolare Italiano, and traveled with it to the Aldwych Theatre in London. After returning to the U.S., he got involved with the off-off-Broadway movement, then in its infancy, at the Judson Poet's Theater and La Mama. During this time, he wrote his first play, Vapors, which was presented at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference. He went on to perform at several regional theaters, including The Arena Stage, in Washington, D.C. Back in New York, he was cast as Beaujo in Sam Shepard's Geography of a Horse Dreamer at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Ellen Stewart, founder of La Mama, introduced him to director Andrei Serban. So began an artistic collaboration that led to his appearance as Jason in Serban's highly successful production of Medea, which, after a run in New York, toured Europe. He then took on the title role in Serban's Agamemnon at Lincoln Center, which was also presented at the Delacorte. Following that he appeared as Sender in The Dybbuk, directed by Joe Chaikin at Joseph Papp's Public Theatre. Back at La Mama, he was Azdak in Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle, then the title role in Goethe's Faust, Part 1, both directed by German director, Fritz Bennewitz. He then went to Los Angeles for the first time to work in film and television, and returned to New York to appear as Burgandy in Henry V, as well as Tanchum in The Golem, both at the Delacorte. At the Center Stage in Baltimore, he played the lead role of Victor Mehta in David Hare's A Map of the World, then worked with director Daniel Sullivan at the Seattle Rep in Red Square as Roosevelt Weinglass. Alexander moved to Los Angeles, where he continues to perform in theatre (Morocco, Ondine, The Disputation, Taking Sides, Flags, The Cherry Orchard) as well as film and television.

Kanan Awni was born in Baghdad, Iraq as Kanan Abdullah Awni. He is an actor, known for The Wild Wild West (1965), The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (1966), The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (1963), and Mission: Impossible (1967). Currently married to Erin O'Brien.

Salwan Momika was born on 23 June 1986 in Tal Afar, Iraq. He died on 29 January 2025 in Södertälje, Sweden.

Soleen Yusef was born in 1987, in Duhok/Iraqi Kurdistan. At the age of nine she and her family had to flee to Germany because of the political circumstances. She graduated high school in Berlin and afterwards attended the Academy of Stage Arts, where she was trained as a singer and actress. Meanwhile she also finished her training as a fashion seamstress and tried out her expertise in different creative fields. Eventually she ended up working in the film industry for a few years and was a production and director assistant at Mîtosfilm. In 2008 she then started studying feature film directing at the Baden-Wurttemberg Film Academy. Her film Trattoria, which she had made in her third year, premiered at the 62. Berlin International Film Festival in 2012. Because of her outstanding academic achievements, Soleen Yusef was distinguished with the Germany Scholarship in 2012. She also participated as a Baden-Wurttemberg scholarship holder in the UCLA Workshop at the Film Academy in Los Angeles in 2013. House Without Roof, which is not only her graduating project but also her first feature film, that has been shot in spring 2015 within and around her hometown Duhok, could achieve a great success. Since then, Soleen Yusef has been working as a director for several international series productions. Among others for Netflix and Amazon Prime. In addition to developing her own cinema, serial and television projects as a creator, Soleen Yusef is currently fulfilling a long-awaited dream with writing her first children's film called Winners, which will be produced by DCM Pictures.

Born in Iraqi Kurdistan, Shawkat Amin Korki and his family fled from military oppression in 1975, living in exile in Iran for 24 years. During his years in Iran and after returning to Iraqi Kurdistan, he began working in the theatre, television, and cinema. His short films, made between 1997 and 2005, have been presented at several international festivals, winning awards. Korki wrote, directed, and produced his first feature film in Iraqi Kurdistan, Crossing the Dust, in 2006. It was shown at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam in 2007. The film won many international prizes, including the Best Director and NETPAK Award at Singapore International Film Festival. His second feature, Kick Off (2009), won twelve international awards, including the Busan International Film Festival New Currents Award and FIPRESCI Prize. His third feature, Memories on Stone (2014), has won fifteen international awards, including the 2014 Best Film from the Arab World at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and the coveted APSA UNESCO Award. His last film, THE EXAM (2021), premiered at 55th Karlovy Vary international film festival and won the critic (PIPRESCI) award. He lives and works in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. His films have participated in more than 200 international film festivals and won more than 50 international awards. He is a Member of the Asia Pacific Academy Award.

Madan Mohan was one of the most respected Hindi film composers. He was also one of the most overlooked - in a career spanning 25 years, he composed music for only over around 100 films, out of which only 25 became box-office hits. This was due to his extremely fastidious nature and the number of tunes he composed for his films that were never used. Born Madan Kohli in 1924, he was the son of Raj Bahadur Chunilal, who worked in famous studios like Bombay Talkies and Filmistan. From his childhood he was seen as musically inclined and talented. In fact, during his lifetime, he amassed an amazing record of compositions, the majority of which were either unutilized for lack of appropriate films or were alternate tunes composed for his films.

He began working in Bollywood as an assistant to music director C. Ramchandra, and got his first major film with Aankhen (1950), a love triangle. The film was a success. Subsequently, a fair amount of work came to Mohan. Among his earlier films was a trilogy of movies with his childhood friend Raj Kapoor - _Aashiana (1952)_, _Dhoon (1952)_ and Papi (1953). Unfortunately for Mohan, the films he chose to compose for did not create much impact, and it was only with Bhai Bhai (1956), which starred the legendary Kumar brothers, Ashok Kumar and Kishore Kumar, that he got some success. But from then on, things got rough; Railway Platform (1955), Gateway of India (1957), while with excellent music, weren't huge hits. And to make matters worse, all of the top stars had already chosen a particular composer to work with (e.g. Dilip Kumar with Naushad the great composer), which left no room for a débutant, however talented.

Then, in the late 1950s and the 1960s, things changed for the better. His scores for Dekh Kabira Roya (1957) and Adalat (1958) showed that. And in the 1960s, he really began to be noticed with Anpadh (1962), with his songs becoming the rage all over India. It was with this film that he became to be known as the Ghazal King, even though he had already established his reputation for gossamer melodies with Adalat (1958). He acquired further commercial success with two films by Raj Khosla - _Woh Kaun Thi (1964)_ and Mera Saaya (1966). He also began to work with filmmaker Chetan Anand, for which he produced his most outstanding score in Haqeeqat (1964), a war film.

Although he brought out the best in his singers, special mention must be made of his work with Lata Mangeshkar, which showed both of them at their very best. This legendary combination was established in 1951 with Adaa (1951) and continued right up to (and after) his death. Mohan had this special talent of bringing out the best in Lata's voice - she could sound seductive in Sanjog (1961), jaunty in Neela Akash (1965) and perky in Mera Saaya (1966). However, it was in sentimental songs that they were at their best.

In the 1970s, when Western songs from films like _Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971)_, Mohan still composed poetic melodies. His strict aesthetic sense caused him to be in great demand with sensitive if not commercially successful filmmakers, and he collaborated with respected names like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Sampooran Singh Gulzar and Rajinder Singh Bedi, his collaboration with Bedi particularly standing out as it was with Dastak (1970) that he got the National Award for best music director - it was the only major award he got during his lifetime.

In 1975, at the age of 51, Mohan died from cirrhosis of the liver. Ironically, two films released soon afterwards - The Season (1975) and _Laila Majnu (1975)_ - became resounding musical successes. However, three decades later, two films paid their tribute to Mohan. One was Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo (2004), a war film which, interestingly, took its title from one of his songs from Haqeeqat (1964). The film, however, didn't do well at the box-office. The other film, a romance called Veer-Zaara (2004), paid a more fitting tribute for a composer - the director, Yash Chopra, took some of his unused compositions and used them in the film.

The spectacular success of Veer-Zaara (2004), especially its soundtrack (with a 75-year-old Lata Mangeshkar still as melodious as ever), established Madan Mohan as one of the elite composers of all time...

Kurdwin Ayub was born in Iraq in 1990. She works as a director, screenwriter, and video and performance artist in Vienna, Austria. Studies in Painting and Animation with Christian Ludwig Attersee and Judith Eisler at the University for Applied Arts Vienna from 2008 to 2013. Since 2011, studies in Performing Arts with Carola Dertnig at the University of Fine Arts Vienna.

Her shorts have been shown and awarded at numerous international film festivals. In 2013, Ayub was awarded the Vienna Independent Short Newcomer Prize, in 2011 and 2012, she received the Viennale Mehrwert Short Film Prize. In 2012, she presented a series of her short films at the Viennale. Her feature documentary Paradise! Paradise! - direction, screenplay and cinematography by Ayub - won Best Camera at the Diagonale - Festival of Austrian Film, the New Waves Non Fiction Award at the Sevilla Festival de Cine Europeo and the Carte Blanche Prize of the Duisburger Filmwoche in 2016.

Ayubs entire works were shown as part of a special short film series at the BAFICI Festival for International Independent Cinema in Buenos Aires (2016) and at the Sevilla European Film Festival (2016).

Ousama Rawi was born on 3 March 1939 in Baghdad, Iraq. He is a cinematographer and producer, known for The Tudors (2007), Killing Jesus (2015) and Borgia (2011). He was previously married to Rita Tushingham.

Shero was born in Baghdad on May 15, 1979. After a year the family came back to his homeland Sulaimaniya (Kurdistan - North of Iraq).

After 20 years living and learning in Sulaimaniya and Arbil he decide to take his dream out of Iraq and begin to realize it and make it become true ...

His first step was in 2002 when he met Jean-Claude Van Damme ... later Steven Seagal....And there was a big step when he had the chance to stay in front of the camera for his first character role....in the movie Epoch: Evolution (2003) with David Keith and Billy Dee Williams...

In the same year he had been chosen as a Stunt actor for the movie Troy (2004), as a Trojan Archer facing Brad Pitt...in Mexico.

From 2004 he began to work like a Digital Effects Artist [ Animation ,Particles ,Dynamic ,Modeling ]...for several movies. Waiting for another chance to return back in front of the Camera again, as an Actor or a Stunt Actor!!!

In 2006 he had the chance to work like a 3D Digital Artist in the movie 88 Minutes (2007) with his favorite Actor Al Pacino

In 2007 Jean-Claude Van Damme introduced him to J.J. Perry (fight choreographer) and (stunt coordinator),And he had his first real training to become a Stuntman ,Later he had the chance to be face to face in the same scene with Jean-Claude Van Damme in the movie The Shepherd (2008) .

Shosha Goren was born on 18 February 1943 in Baghdad, Iraq. She is an actress, known for Bat Yam - New York (1995), Alilot David (1998) and Scarred (2013). She is married to Yitzhak Goren.

Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was born on 28 July 1971 in Samarra, Iraq. He died on 26 October 2019 in Barisha, Syria.