Khadar Ayderus Ahmed (born 10 January 1981), is a Finnish-Somali director and writer.^[1] He is best known for directing the feature film The Gravedigger's Wife.^[2][3]

Ahmed was born on 10 January 1981 in Mogadishu, Somalia. At the age of 16, he moved to Finland as a refugee with his family.^[2][4][5]

In 2008, he wrote the script of the short film Citizens where he also worked as the second assistant director.^{[citation needed]} Then in 2014, he directed the first short Me ei vietetä joulua which received critics acclaim. He later directed two more short films Yövaras (2017) and The Killing of Cahceravga (2018).^[6]

In 2021, Ahmed directed his maiden film Guled & Nasra, which is internationally known as The Gravedigger's Wife. The film premiered in July 2021 in the Critics' Week section at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Critics' Week Grand Prize and Caméra d'Or. The film received critics acclaim and screened in many film festivals.^[7] The film was also nominated for the Grand-Prix Award under the International Competition at the Kyiv International Short Film Festival. Then in the same year, he was again nominated for the Amplify Voices Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.^[8] The film became the first Somali submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.^[9][10]

In 2022, Ahmed participated in the Sight & Sound film polls of that year. It is held every ten years to select the greatest films of all time, by asking contemporary directors to select ten films of their choice.^[11]

Ahmed selections were: