Hleb Papou (1991), born in Belarus, has been living in Italy since 2003. He graduated in Film Directing at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in 2017 with his graduation short film Il legionario, which was screened at the International Critics' Week of the Venice Film Festival 2017 and entered the Future Frames program of Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2018. In 2021 his debut feature film Il legionario (based on the short film by the same name) was screened at Locarno Film Festival in the Cineasti del Presente Competition, where Hleb won an award as the best debuting director. The film was released in Italian theatres, and in February 2022 it entered the top five best debuts at the Nastro d'Argento awards. In 2024 Hleb was selected at Berlinale Talents and realized two short films, Fellini, which was presented at Alice nella città 2024, where it won the distribution award, and Lettera di un sicario, a found footage short film presented at Filmmaker 2024.