Haaris Qureshi was born on the 8th February 1995 in his hometown of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It is growing up there he frequently visited the National Media Museum, then called the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, which laid in the seeds that would eventually grow into a passion for filmmaking.
In early 2007 Haaris joined the Animation Club, where he would experiment with stop-motion and computer animation. It was from there that eventually Haaris came to realise he enjoyed making films. In 2010, Haaris begun to produce video blogs (vlogs), which further fuelled his passion for the art. Haaris would then go on to videograph multiple school performances, filming them, organising other cameramen, editing the footage and authoring DVDs. His first paid filming job came the year after he left Bradford Grammar School, where he was hired to film and produce the DVD for the 75th anniversary performance of Johnson Over Jordan. He also was the Video Director of a production of Alice at Bradford Grammar School the same year.
Also after leaving Bradford Grammar School, Haaris joined the charity Team v as a volunteer with one of the Bradford branches, working under the leadership with former schoolmate Jade Dhesi. Whilst with Team v, Haaris co-produced the short films they made, as well as co-writing and cinematographing a short film and directing a documentary on migration. The following year Haaris joined Team v as a leader himself, operating in Newcastle, which he vlogged his experiences of, produced several films of the campaigns run, and produced a series of short films which he produce, directed and wrote.
After leaving Bradford Grammar School, Haaris got into Newcastle University to study an undergraduate masters in Computer Science. Whilst in his First Year, Haaris joined the Theatre Society, the Film Society and the Comedy Society. It was in the latter that Haaris started his career as a comedian, performing improv comedy with the society, before progressing into also performing stand-up comedy, making his debut at a Long Live Comedy show at Newcastle’s Dog and Parrot. Within the society, Haaris also produced and directed with fellow society member Victoria Kaye (as well as script edited, as well as also occasionally acting as a sound technician) his first ‘full-production’ short film - that is, a film with a full cast and crew, as opposed to the skeleton crew and cast he worked with before. The production was not the smoothest operation, but was without a doubt a massive learning experience that would teach Haaris many valuable lessons about working on a production. The short film, Claws For Alarm, was released in October 2015. In 2015, Haaris because the Head of Production for the Newcastle University Filming Society, where he revamped how the production side of the society ran to make it more inclusive, writing a guidebook for the society to ensure consistency.
Haaris is a Muslim, and a passionate social activist, advocating gender and race equality. Haaris lists among his influences Joss Whedon, Armando Iannucci, Paul Merton, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, John Morton, and Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.