Anas Khalaf is a Syrian-French filmmaker who currently lives in Doha, Qatar, having left Damascus, Syria, with his family in 2012 as a result of the Syrian conflict. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Normandy Business School in France. After three years of experience in the oil and gas industry in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, he went on to learn filmmaking by experience during several trips to Los Angeles in 2000 and 2001. He and his wife Rana Kazkaz co-founded the production company Synéastes Films in 2010 when they were based in Syria.