Tom Tykwer was born in Wuppertal in 1965. The young film enthusiast was making his first Super-8 films at the age of 11. After the two short films, Because and Epilog, he made his first feature film, Deadly Maria, in 1993. In 1994, Tykwer founded the production company X Filme Creative Pool with Stefan Arndt, Wolfgang Becker and Dani Levy.

He directed his second film, Winter Sleepers, in 1996/97. Tykwer's next project was the most successful German film of 1998: Run Lola Run. The film went on to great critical acclaim, winning the Gold German Film Awards for feature film, direction, cinematography, editing, supporting actor, and supporting actress. The film was also honored with the Audience Award as German Film of the Year.

His next film project, The Princess and the Warrior, was shown at the Venice Film Festival and went on to be awarded the Silver German Film Award for Best Film. Tykwer's last full-length feature film, Heaven, opened the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2002.

After graduating from Munich's Television and Film Academy in 1973, BERND EICHINGER (producer/co-screenwriter) founded his first production company, Solaris Film, and began a career that was to change the course of the German film industry. His early productions brought international attention to a new German filmmakers like Wim Wenders (The Wrong Movement), Edgar Reitz (Zero Hour), Hans W. Geissendörfer (The Glass Cell), and Wolfgang Petersen (The Consequence).

In 1979, Eichinger assumed directorship of Constantin Film, the Munich-based production and distribution company that he has guided to the forefront of the international film industry. Among his most successful international productions are: Wolfgang Petersen's The Neverending Story, Uli Edel's Christiane F. and Last Exit to Brooklyn, Jean Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose, Doris Dörrie's Me & Him, and Bille August's The House of Spirits and Smilla's Sense of Snow.

Eichinger co-produced the Best Foreign Language Oscar® winning Nowhere in Africa and the box-office hits Resident Evil and its sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Downfall, starring Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler, was one of 2005's foreign language Oscar® nominees. His most recent production, Fantastic Four, based on the Marvel comics, was a No. 1 boxoffice-hit on screens throughout the world.