Mano Khalil, filmmaker

Mano Khalil is a Kurdish-Swiss film director.

Mano Khalil was born in Syria and studied film direction in Czechoslovakia, then worked as an independent film director for Czechoslovak and later for Slovak Television. 

Since 1996, he has worked as an independent film director and producer in Switzerland. He has made numerous award-winning documentaries, including Triumph of Iron (1998) and In 2004, he directed his feature debut Colorful Dreams (2004). He subsequently directed many significant films, including Our Garden of Eden(2010), The Beekeeper (2013), Die Schwalbe (2016), and Hafis & Mara (2018). His most recent film is Neighbors (2021). 

Khalil observes that to date his film subjects love the way he portrayed them, because his style of filmmaking is to “transmit feelings.” “Without feelings,” he says, movies “are nothing. … You have to build a friendship with your protagonist.”

Mano Khalil was interviewed by Xeyal Quertel for the NYKCC’s Kurdish Heritage Month in 2022. 

Length: 50 minutes | Language: English

Update: Mano Khalil’s film Neighbors was the opening film at the New York Kurdish Film Festival’s sixth edition.