Dror Shaul is a film and commercials writer and director residing in Tel Aviv, Israel. In 1999 he wrote and directed his first short film Operation Grandma, (50 minutes, original title: Mivtsa Savta) which won the Israeli Academy Award and was a final nominee for the Banff Rockie Award in 2000 in Canada.

His first feature film Sima Vaknin, Witch, (90 minutes, original title: Sima Vaknin, Mechashefa) which he wrote and directed, was released in July 2003. In 2003 Dror participated in the Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs with Sweet Mud. (This is when he met, collaborated and became friends with Hany Abu-Assad). The film was released in September 2006 and won 4 Israeli Academy Awards including best film. Sweet Mud premiered in the Toronto IFF, participated in Pusan IFF, won the Sundance IFF Grand Jury Award in world cinema competition 2007, won the Crystal Bear in Berlin IFF 2007, the Audience Award in Miami IFF and the Bermuda IFF.

Dror has worked on several nationally and internationally recognized commercials campaigns. His commercial spots won the Cactus Award (Israel's equivalent of the Clio Award) twice for Best Campaign. He has also won the New York Festival's Global Award and an Ad Spot Award at the International Festival of Low Budget Commercial Films in Rome.

Hany Abu-Assad was born in Nazareth in 1961 and emigrated to the Netherlands in 1980. After having studied technical engineering in Delft he worked as an airplane engineer in the Netherlands for several years. He was hired having an Israeli passport, but when he appeared to be an Arab Israeli and not Jewish, he was fired, allegedly for that reason.

Hany entered the world of cinema and television as a producer and in 1990, he formed Ayloul Film Productions. In 1998 he directed his first film, Het 14de kippetje (The Fourteenth Chick), from a script by writer Arnon Grunberg.

Later films are the short Nazareth 2000 (2000) and Rana's Wedding (2002).

In 2006 his film Paradise Now won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and it received an Oscar-nomination in the same category, In 2005 Paradise Now won the Golden Calf for best Dutch film.

Hany and Dror are rumored to be working on a future film project together.