Tom Tykwer (placeholder)

Tykwer was fascinated by film from an early age. He started making amateur Super 8 films at the age of eleven and later helped out at a local arthouse cinema to see more movies, including those he was too young to buy tickets for. After graduating from high school, he unsuccessfully applied to numerous film schools around Europe and moved to Berlin, where he worked as a projectionist. In 1987, at the age of 22, he became the programmer of the Moviemento cinema and was known to German directors as a highly respected film buff.

Tykwer wrote the screenplay to and directed his first feature film, Deadly Maria, which aired on German television and saw a limited theatrical release in Germany and the international film festival circuit.

In 1994, Tykwer founded the production company X Filme Creative Pool with Stefan Arndt, Wolfgang Becker and Dani Levy. Tykwer and Becker wrote the screenplay for Life Is All You Get while working on Tykwer’s second feature, Wintersleepers (1997), a much bigger and complex production than Deadly Maria. Wintersleepers brought Tykwer to the attention of German cineastes and film festivals, but Tykwer was struggling financially. He knew he needed a new film, and the result was Run Lola Run (1998), which became the most successful German film of 1998, scored $7 million at the US box office, and elevated Tykwer to international fame.