Karim Moussaoui was born in 1976 and began his directing career with three short films and the acclaimed medium-length film The Days Before (2013). The screenplay for his first feature, Until the Birds Return (2017), won a Gan Foundation Award in 2016 and was developed through the Cinéfondation residency and the Ateliers d’Angers. The film had its premiere at the Festival de Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. Moussaoui is a founding member of Chrysalide, an Algerian cultural association created in 2000 that promotes cinema, and headed film programming at the French Institute in Algiers for several years.