Jeri Ryan was born Jeri Lynn Zimmerman on February 22, 1968 in Munich, West Germany, to Gerhard Florian Zimmerman, a Master Sergeant in the United States Army, and his wife Sharon, a social worker. She and her older brother Mark grew up on several military bases, including Kansas, Maryland, Hawaii, Georgia and Texas. Finally, at age 11, her father retired from the Army and her family settled down in Paducah, Kentucky. After graduating from Lone Oak High School in 1986, she attended Northwestern University Chicago as a National Merit Scholar. While studying there, she won a number of beauty contests (a.o.- sixth annual Miss Northwestern Alpha Delta Phi Pageant in 1989).

With a B.S. degree in Theatre, she came to Los Angeles, California and since then she has been on several television series and films - including popular series like Matlock (1986), Melrose Place (1992) and Star Trek: Voyager (1995) as well as Dark Skies (1996). Her television experience also includes roles in a variety of telefilms including Nightmare in Columbia County (1991), NBC's In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco (1993), Co-ed Call Girl (1996), The Sentinel (1996), Men Cry Bullets (1998), Dracula 2000 (2000), The Last Man (2000) and Down with Love (2003). Jeri Ryan resides in an area of Los Angeles, California with her husband chef Christophe Eme, her son Alex and daughter Gisele.

Director. Writer. Producer. Actor. Poet. He studied history, literature and theatre for some time, but didn't finish it and founded instead his own film production company in 1963. Later in his life, Herzog also staged several operas in Bayreuth, Germany, and at the Milan Scala in Italy. Herzog has won numerous national and international awards for his poetic feature and documentary films.

Lisa Vicari is a German actress. She is known for Luna (2017), Hell (2017) and the Netflix series Dark.

Her acting debut was in the short film Tunnelblicke (2009) and her first film on the big screen was Hanni & Nanni (2010).

Vicari also had other small roles in Einer wie Bruno (2011) and Exit Marrakech (2013).

Her first major role in a film was in Doktorspiele (2014).

A true master of his craft, Michael Haneke is one of the greatest film artists working today and one who challenges his viewers each year and work goes by, with films that reflect real portions of life in realistic, disturbing and unforgettable ways. One of the most genuine filmmakers of the world cinema, Haneke wrote and directed films in several languages: French, German and English, working with a great variety of actors, such as Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Toby Jones, Ülrich Muhe, Arno Frisch and the list goes on.

This grand figure from Austrian cinema was born in Germany on 23 March 1942, from a German father and an Austrian mother, with both parents being from the artistic world working as actors, a career that Michael also tried but without much success. At the University of Vienna he studied drama, philosophy and psychology, and after graduation he went on to become a film critic and TV editor. His career behind camera started with After Liverpool (1974), which he wrote and directed. He went on to direct five more TV films and two episodes from the miniseries "Lemminge" (1979)_.

The years spent on television works prompted him to finally direct his first cinema feature, during his early 40's, which is somewhat unusual for film directors. But it was worth waiting. In The Seventh Continent (1989), Haneke establishes the foundation of what his future cinema would be about: a cinema that doesn't provides answers but one that dares to throw more and more questions, a cinema that reflects and analyses the human condition in its darkest and unexpected ways outside of any Hollywood formula. Films that exist to confront audiences and not comfort them. In it, Haneke deals with the duality of social values vs. internal values while exposing an apparent perfect family that runs into physical and material disintegration for reasons unknown. It was the first time a film of his was sent to the Cannes Film Festival (out of competition lineup) but he managed to cause some commotion in the audience with polemic scenes that were meant to extract all possible reactions from the crowd.

His next ventures at the decade's turn was in dealing with disturbed youth and the alienation they have in separating reality from fiction, trying to intersect both to drastic results. In Benny's Video (1992), it's the disturbing story of a teen boy who experiences killing for the first time capturing the murder on tape, impressed by the power of detachment that films and videos can cause to people; and later on the highly controversial Funny Games (1997), where two teens hold a family hostage to play sadistic games just for their own sick amusement. The film cemented Haneke's name as one of the greatest authors of his generation but sparkled a great debate with its themes of violence, sadism and the influence those things have in audiences. At the 1997's Cannes Film Festival, it was the film that had the most walk-out's by the audience. In between both films, he released 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994) and Kafka's The Castle (1997), the latter being one of the rare times when Haneke developed an adapted work.

In the 2000's, he strongly continued in producing more outstanding works prone to debate and reflection in what would become his most prolific decade with the following films: Code Unknown (2000), The Piano Teacher (2001), Time of the Wolf (2003), Caché (2005), an American remake shot-by shot of Funny Games (2007) and The White Ribbon (2009). His study about romance versus masochism in The Piano Teacher (2001) was an intense work, with powerful performances by Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel, that the Cannes jury in the year were so impressed that Haneke managed to actually reverse their award rules where it was decided that film entries at the festival couldn't win more than one main award (the two lead actors won awards and Haneke got the Grand Prize of the Jury, just lost the Palme d'Or). With The White Ribbon (2009), an enigmatic black-and-white masterpiece following the inception of Nazism in this pre WWI and WWII story focusing on repressed children living in this small village where strange events happen all the time and without any possible reasoning, Haneke conquered the world and audiences with an artistic and daring work that won his first Palme d'Or a Golden Globe as Best Foreign Language Film and received an Oscar nomination for the same category plus the cinematography work of Christian Berger.

2012 was the year that marked his supremacy in the film world with the release of the bold and beautiful Amour (2012), a love story with powerful real drama and one where Haneke removed most of his usual dark characteristics to present more quiet and calm elements without losing input in creating controversy. The touching story of George and Anne provided one the greatest moments of that year and earned Haneke his second and consecutive Palme d'Or at Cannes and his first Oscar nominations for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay - and it was one of the several nominees for Best Picture Oscar, winning as Best Foreign Language Film.

After abandoning a flash-mob film project, he returned to the screen with Happy End (2017), a film dealing with the refugee crisis in Europe and again he debuted his film at Cannes, receiving mildly positive reviews.

Besides his film work, Haneke also directs theatre productions, from drama to opera, from Così fan tutte to Don Giovanni.

Nadia Hilker is a German actress, known for her roles in Spring (2014), The 100 (2014) and The Walking Dead (2010).

Nadia Hilker is a renowned German film and television actress who has been in the movie industry since 2010. Best known for her role in Spring and The 100, Hilker's love for acting dates back to her childhood days. Her nationality is German. Her father worked in IT while her mother worked at Lufthansa airline. The two only spent thirty-five years as husband and wife and had Nadia and her brother as children. Growing up with her only brother was fun for Hilker as both had adventurous spirits. On several occasions, they visited Paris from Munich just to have coffee on the Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris and also built tree houses in the forest near their home.

Before joining the movie industry, Hilker worked as a model. She was discovered by a model agent at a ballet school. She lost interest in modeling after a couple of years to give chase to her acting ambition.

The German star began her journey to stardom by taking on the famous role of Marie-Luise Seelig in the television movie Zimmer mit Tante (2010). In the same year, she scored the role of Xenia in the television movie The Route (2010), a drama movie written by Tobias Stille and directed by Florian Froschmayer.

Over the course of her acting career, she has made more than eighteen appearances on television movies and films. Her notable films include Spring (2014), In the Gallery (2014), The Divergent Series: Allegiant (2016), and Collide (2016). In 2015, she was decorated with the Fright Meter award for roles in her debut movie, Spring.

In addition to acting, Nadia is also good at writing. She once said that writing is the only creativity that helps her grow and explore the world. Her other hobbies are cooking and music. As for her musical influences, she named King of Pop Michael Jackson as one of her musical heroes.

Lilly Krug is a German actress born in Munich. She grew up bilingual, attended Bavarian International School, and moved to Los Angeles in 2019 to study theater and psychology at the University of Southern California. Additionally, Lilly takes classes at Anthony Meindl Acting School and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She debuted at the age of 18 with her role as Milena in the drama short film Malou (2019), a finalist at the Oscar-qualifying 22nd Manhattan Short Film Festival in 2019.

Lilly is best known for her shining performance as the lead actress alongside John Malkovich in the action thriller Shattered (2021). Variety celebrated her performance as "A Memorable Femme Fatal. " Other notable credits include the drama Heart of Champions (2021) with Oscar-nominated actor Michael Shannon, the thriller Zero Contact (2022) with Anthony Hopkins, and the drama, mystery, thriller Every Breath You Take (2021) including Academy Award winner Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, and Sam Claflin.

In 2023 Lilly is seen as Brie alongside Gerald Butler in the action thriller Plane.

Lilly also loves to push her limits. She proved that, among other things, when she climbed Kilimanjaro in 2020 and took a trip to rural India to help build a school near Mumbai. She loves physical challenges and is always discovering new sports for herself. Lilly plays the piano and showed her singing abilities in various musicals such as "Into the Woods" by James Lapine and "Romeo and Juliet" by Shakespeare.

Lilly Krug lives in Los Angeles and Munich.

Alicia von Rittberg, born on December 10, 1993 in Munich, made her debut in front of the camera at the age of six in the popular TV-show "Dingsda," in which small children had to explain different everyday concepts. But her real acting career began only a few years later: in 2006 she appeared in a series of the crime series "The Old One," followed by supporting roles in the television games Die Lawine (2007) and Die Sache mit dem Glück (2008). Alicia von Rittberg became known to a wider audience through the seven-part film series Meine wunderbare Familie (2008); In it she played the 13-year-old daughter of the main character. In the film biography Romy (2009), she played Romy Schneider in her teens. Shortly thereafter, she was seen in No Sky Over Whales (2009) as the daughter of Veronica Ferres played main character. Other supporting roles she had in the cinema comedy Eine ganz heiße Nummer (2011), in A Deal with Adele (2012) and in Christian Petzold's GDR drama Barbara (2012). A major role played by Rittberg as a humiliated Heimkind in the drama Und alle haben geschwiegen (2012). In 2013, she received the Günter Rohrbach Film Prize and the Young Talent Award at the Bavarian Television Prize for this performance. Positive reviews also got the TV play The Lost Daughter (2013), about a woman who is suddenly confronted after 16 years with her daughter once released for adoption. Rittberg also belonged to the family history ensemble On the Road with Elsa (2014) and the historical thriller The Midwife (2014). The latter role earned her the New Faces Award for Best Newcomer Actress. Rittberg had a small but significant role in the American second world war movie Fury (2014) starring Brad Pitt. She played in it a young German, who must host an American tank crew. Easier stuff was the romantic comedy Das Romeo-Prinzip (2015), which showed her as a shy student. Director Sönke Wortmann cast Alicia von Rittberg in a starring role in his acclaimed mini-series Charité (2017) as a combative and ambitious nurse. Another American production was the miniseries Genius (2017) on the life of Albert Einstein, in which played by Rittberg Anna Winteler, the daughter of the scientist Jost Winteler. In the same year she was an ambitious elite student to the ensemble of Alain Gsponer's Godless Youth (2017), a dystopian future after Ödön von Horvath's novel of the same name.

In addition to acting, Alicia von Rittberg studies economics in Friedrichshafen.

Harriet Herbig-Matten was born in 2003 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. She is an actress, known for Maxton Hall: The World Between Us (2024), The Nordic Murders (2014) and Teenosaurus Rex (2017).

Jeanette Hain was born in Munich. While studying directing at the School of Television and Film in Munich, the by chance meeting with director Sherry Hormann made her childhood dream come true by resulting in her first leading part in "Die Cellistin - Liebe und Verhängnis". Since then she has been playing in German and international films.

Tracey E. Bregman was born on 29 May 1963 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. She is an actress and producer, known for The Young and the Restless (1973), The Bold and the Beautiful (1987) and Days of Our Lives (1965). She was previously married to Ronald Recht.

Martina Gedeck was born in Munich. After spending a year in the US, she studied drama at the Berlin University of the Arts. Martina's film career began while she was still at drama school. Her filmography covers practically all genres of film.

Gedeck has won a total of 23 major cinema and TV awards. She was nominated as Europe's best actress on her role in "Mostly Martha". The film was later remade with Catherine Zeta-Jones playing her role.

Her films were twice selected as Germany's entry to the Oscars. In 2007, "The Lives of Others" with her in the lead role won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2009 she again had the title role in Germany's Oscar contender "The Baader Meinhof Complex", also nominated for the Golden Globes.

Martina Gedeck resides in Berlin, Germany.

Curd Jürgens (commonly billed as "Curt Jurgens" in anglophone countries) was one of the most successful European film actors of the 20th Century. He was born Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens on December 13, 1915, in Solln, Bavaria, in Hohenzollern Imperial Germany, a subject of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Of Franco-German parentage, Jürgens -- who was born during the closing days of the second year of the First World War -- would abandon the country of his birth after the end of World War II: Jürgens became an Austrian citizen in 1945 and lived part-time in France.

Jürgens entered the journalism profession after receiving his education, and married Louise Basler, an actress. Basler, the first of his five wives, encouraged him to switch careers and become an actor. He learned his new profession on the Vienna stage, which retained his loyalty even after he became an global film star. Jürgens was sent to a concentration camp for "political unreliables" in 1944, due to his anti-Nazi opinions. It was this experience in Nazi Germany that led him to become an Austrian citizen after the war.

His appearance in The Devil's General (1955) ("The Devil's General" (1955)), established him as a star of German cinema, and his role as Brigitte Bardot's older lover in Roger Vadim's ...And God Created Woman (1956) (And God Created Woman (1956)) made him an international star. Always interested in multilingual European actors with good looks and talent, Hollywood beckoned the 6' 4" Jürgens, casting him in The Enemy Below (1957) as a WWII German U-boat commander in a duel with American destroyer commander Robert Mitchum. He constantly was in demand to play Germany military officers (e.g., The Longest Day (1962), the most expensive black-and-white film ever made) -- indeed, his last role was as "The General" in the miniseries Smiley's People (1982) -- and Germanic villains (e.g., "Cornelius", the cowardly and treacherous trading company representative, in Lord Jim (1965)) for the rest of his life. One of his most famous roles in the English-language cinema was as the James Bond villain, "Karl Stromberg", in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977); it was Moore's favorite Bond film.

Jürgens considered himself primarily a stage actor and often performed on the Vienna stage. Though the world knew him as a cinema actor, he also directed several films and wrote several screenplays and an autobiography, "Sixty and Not Yet Wise" (1975). His death from a heart attack in 1982 in Vienna was front-page news across Austria and Germany.

Lara Wendel was born on 29 March 1965 in Munich, Germany. She is an actress, known for Tenebrae (1982), Ghosthouse (1988) and La piovra (1984).

Moritz Bleibtreu is a German actor born on August 13, 1971 in Munich growing up in Hamburg. He first appears in children's television series Neues aus Uhlenbusch (1977) at the age of six. His breakthrough was the role called "Abdul" in the movie Knockin' on Heaven's Door (1997). He also became internationally known for his work on Run Lola Run (1998), The Experiment (2001) and World War Z (2013). In Germany, He is well known for the classic stoner-movie called Lammbock (2001) in which he plays the leading role. He speaks fluent German, English, French and Italian and is the son of Austrian actors Hans Brenner and Monica Bleibtreu.

Rosemary Murphy was born on 13 January 1925 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. She was an actress, known for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Eleanor and Franklin (1976) and After.Life (2009). She was married to Reginald Marsh. She died on 5 July 2014 in New York City, New York, USA.

Born in Munich in 1969, Gedeon was raised bilingual (English & German). He was sent to boarding school in England at the age of 8 and transferred to American high school at the age of 12. Gedeon starred in his first movie (Aunt Maria) when he was 10, his second lead role followed one year later in the American / German co-production Blood and Honor (3 part mini series) as Hartmut Keller. By demand of the American and German Producers each scene was shot once in English and once in German, due to his bilingual upbringing, Gedeon was the only actor who did not have to be dubbed in either version.

Gedeon continuously worked in various projects during school vacations until he dropped out of high school after 11th grade. At this time he concentrated on training for 2 years, attending musical school and taking speech and acting classes on the side.

In 1988 Gedeon starred, next to Tony Curtis and Birol Head On by Fathi Akin), in the motion Picture Welcome to Germany which marked the beginning of his career as a grownup. Since then Gedeon has acted in numerous films, including Acting it Out (German film award/ Movie and Bavarian Film award/Actor) by acclaimed German director Wortman, Silence like Glass by Carl Schenkel and Making Up (Student Academy Award USA/German Film Award) by Katja von Garnier. He also starred in the internationally successful television series Detectiv Rex (sold to over 140 territories) and Kobra 11 (Action series, sold to over 120 territories).

in 2006 Gedeon portrayed Henry Neumann, a Jewish boxer trapped in a boxcar with his family on the way to Auschwitz, in the motion picture The last Train. This challenging part, it seems, was the perfect preparation for the biggest opportunity in his career to date, the part of the Jewish Basterd (Will Wicky) in Quentin Tarantino's new movie Inglorious Basterds.

Elyas M'Barek was born on 29 May 1982 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. He is an actor, known for Suck Me Shakespeer (2013), Who Am I (2014) and The Wave (2008).

After the birth of her two children, Marie Aumüller married Rudolf Koch. Her children took the name of their stepfather. Although the marriage of Rudolf and Marie Koch was short-lived, the children did not know the identity of their biological father, Rudolf Schindler, a well-known gastroenterologist, until much later. He was a Jew, so the fact that he hadn't been identified as the father of Marie Koch's children may explain how they survived the Shoah. In 1934, Schindler was forced to emigrate from Germany with his wife, Gabriele Winkler, and their two children Richard and Ursula. After Gabriele Winkler's death, Rudolf Schindler married Marie Koch.

Volker Bruch was born on 9 March 1980 in Munich, Germany. He is an actor, known for The Reader (2008), The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008) and Babylon Berlin (2017).

Rosalie Thomass was born on 14 August 1987 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany. She is an actress and writer, known for Greetings from Fukushima (2016), The Unheard Woman (2016) and The Heartbreak Agency (2024).

Florian David Fitz was born on 20 November 1974 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany. He is an actor and writer, known for Jesus Loves Me (2012), The Most Beautiful Day (2016) and Oskars Kleid (2022).

Simon Verhoeven is a director and screenwriter. He was born on June 20, 1972, in Munich, Germany, to actress Senta Berger and director Michael Verhoeven.

After high school, Verhoeven enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute to study acting but left the program after a couple of months to complete a four-year degree in screenwriting and directing at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He also studied piano under the American jazz pianist Don Friedman.

Starting out as an actor, Verhoeven appeared in over 30 feature films and TV movies - among them the New York-based indie comedy Party Girl (1995), the biopic Bride of the Wind (2001) directed by Oscar® nominee Bruce Beresford, the award-winning Mogadischu (2008) as well as the Russian-German film Vasilisa (2000), starring alongside infamous punk icon Nina Hagen.

In 2001, Verhoeven made his cinematic debut as a director and screenwriter with the coming-of-age film 100 Pro (2001) starring Ken Duken. His big break came with the feature film Men in the City (2009) (internationally released as Men in the City). Distributed by Warner Bros., the comedy became a hit with audiences and critics alike, winning the Jupiter Award 2010 for Best Film as well as the Bavarian Film Award for Best Screenplay, among others. The cast also received a Bambi (Germany's most prestigious media award). Men in the City has been remade in various countries.

After writing and directing the equally successful sequel Men in the City 2 (2011), Verhoeven turned to a completely different genre in 2014, directing the low-budget-horror movie Unfriend starring Alycia Debnam-Carey. Although a creative disappointment for the director, the German production was screened in theaters worldwide.

Verhoeven's next movie Welcome to Germany (2016) became 2016's most successful German film in theaters. The biting social satire deals with the refugee crisis and social tensions by placing them in the microcosm of a quarreling family. Hitting the zeitgeist, the film won numerous awards in Germany and was nominated for Best Comedy at the European Film Awards. It was even adapted for the stage, debuting at the renowned Viennese Burgtheater.

In 2020, Verhoeven's film Nightlife (2020), starring Elyas M'Barek and Palina Rojinski - his fifth collaboration with Warner Bros. and the German production company Wiedemann & Berg - went straight to number one at the German box office and was later named the most successful German film of 2020. Nightlife (2020) also won multiple awards including the Ernst Lubitsch Award in 2021.

Christian Tramitz was born on 13 July 1955 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany. He is an actor and writer, known for (T)Raumschiff Surprise - Periode 1 (2004), Manitou's Shoe (2001) and Hubert ohne Staller (2011). He has been married to Anette Tramitz since July 2004. They have two children. He was previously married to Christiane Doermer.

Samia Muriel Chancrin was born on 19 January 1983 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. She is an actress, known for In the Fade (2017), The Captain (2017) and Tatort (1970).

Michael Bollner was born on 14 September 1958 in Munich, Germany. He is an actor, known for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), M.U.G.E.N (1999) and Bizarre Transmissions from the Bermuda Triangle (2015).