Mo Harawe was born in Mogadishu in Somalia. He attended art school in Somalia, where he discovered his passion for the cinema. Since 2009 he has lived in Austria, where he started his experience as a director. He has taken part in many film workshops, and made short films selected for international festivals winning many awards. He has also worked as a screenwriter for feature-length films. The screenplay for the feature film To Mogadishu, developed at the Diverse Geschichten Script Lab, won the Dor Film Award at the Diagonale Film Festival in 2016. In 2019, he obtained the BKA Startstipendium, a support fund to make his feature film, The Village next to Paradise, currently in development.