Soleen Yusef was born in 1987, in Duhok/Iraqi Kurdistan. At the age of nine she and her family had to flee to Germany because of the political circumstances. She graduated high school in Berlin and afterwards attended the Academy of Stage Arts, where she was trained as a singer and actress. Meanwhile she also finished her training as a fashion seamstress and tried out her expertise in different creative fields. Eventually she ended up working in the film industry for a few years and was a production and director assistant at Mîtosfilm. In 2008 she then started studying feature film directing at the Baden-Wurttemberg Film Academy.