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Faraz Shariat was born in Cologne in 1994. His grandparents are from Iran and fled to Germany in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution. He gained his first experience in acting in his school's drama club, but soon realized that directing was closer to his heart. After graduating from high school, he began studying Applied Cultural Studies at the University of Hildesheim in 2013. There, together with Paulina Lorenz and Raquel Kishori Molt, he founded the film production company Jünglinge, which focuses on stories told from post-migrant, queer or feminist perspectives.
Shariat's first short documentary, "Ich bin euer Sohn" ("I Am Your Son," 2016), in which he explored his family's history, premiered at the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival in 2016. His first feature film, the coming-of-age drama "Futur Drei" ("No Hard Feelings"), was also inspired by his own experiences; he co-wrote the screenplay with Lorenz. The film premiered in the Panorama section of the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Teddy Award. At the First Steps Awards, "Futur Drei" received the prize for Best Feature Film, and its three lead actors were honored with the Götz George Young Talent Award.
In 2020/21, Shariat directed several episodes of the acclaimed youth series "Druck," followed in 2022 by three episodes of the comedy-horror series "The Baby." During this time, he also made two short documentaries. The four-part miniseries "Zeit Verbrechen" (2024), based on real criminal cases, earned widespread critical praise and several awards; Shariat wrote and directed the episode "Love by Proxy."
In the Panorama section of the 2026 Berlinale, Faraz Shariat presented his new feature film "Staatsschutz" ("Prosecution"), a thriller about a young public prosecutor of Asian descent who sets out to confront right-wing violence in eastern Germany—only to become the victim of a racist attack herself.