Matthias Lutthardt was born in the Netherlands in 1972. He studied rhetoric as well as German and French literature in Paris and in Hamburg where he qualified as Master of Arts with a thesis about Kieszlowzski. He then followed film direction and Dick Ross's film writing courses at the German School for Cinema and Television (DFFP). After making two shorts in 2001, he received a nomination to the Silver Wolf Award at the 2004 Amsterdam International Film Festival for his feature-length documentary Menschen brauchen Hobbies. In 2003 he was the production manager for the Ugandan film Full of Energy. In the Summer of 2005, soon after graduating from the Konrad Wolf School in Postdam-Babelsberg, he started shooting his first fiction film, Pingpong, a tense, cruel drama that gained much critical acclaim.