Mano Khalil was born in Syrian Kurdistan in 1964. He studied history and law at the University of Damascus and in 1987 moved to what was then Czechoslovakia to study film. He worked for Slovakian television until 1996, when he moved to Switzerland where he consolidated is career as a documentary director and in 2021 he founded his production company, Frame Film. In 2021 Neighbours had its world premiere at the Locarno Festival.