Moustapha Akkad (Aleppo, July 1, 1930 – Amman, November 11, 2005) was a Syrian-American film producer and director. After moving to the United States to study film at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he became known for directing two historical epics, conceived with the aim of building a cultural bridge between the Western and Arab worlds: *The Message* (1976), about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and *Lion of the Desert* (1981), centered on the Libyan resistance hero Omar al-Mukhtar. Concurrently, as a producer, he achieved lasting commercial success by associating his name with the *Halloween* horror franchise, serving as executive producer on John Carpenter's original 1978 film and all of its sequels released during his lifetime. Akkad was tragically killed, along with his daughter Rima, in the 2005 Amman terrorist bombings. For his artistic and cultural contributions, he was posthumously awarded the Order of Merit of the Syrian Arab Republic.