Kurdwin Ayub was born in Iraq in 1990. Her short films have been screened and awarded at numerous international film festivals. Her feature documentary Paradise! Paradise! which she wrote, directed and filmed, won the Best Camera Award at the Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film, the New Waves Non-Fiction Award at the Seville European Film Festival and the Carte Blanche Prize at the Duisburger Filmwoche in 2016. Her first fiction short film Boomerang premiered at the 2019 Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival and won the Jury Award for Best Short Film. Her fiction feature debut Sonne had its world premiere at the 72. Berlinale in the Encounters competition and won the GWFF Best First Feature Award.