Mo Harawe was born in Mogadishu. Since 2009, he has lived in Vienna, where he began making films. He attended numerous film workshops and made five short films that have won awards at international festivals. He also works as a screenwriter and his feature film script To Mogadishu, developed at the Diverse Geschichten script lab, won the Dor Film award at the Diagonale in 2016. In 2019, Harawe won the BKA Startstipendium for his new feature film, The Village Next to Paradise, now in development.