TOBI BAUMANN
DIRECTOR
Tobi Baumann began his career devoted to comedy. He started as a freelance writer for the “RTL – Nachtshow” and “Die Harald Schmidt Show.” In the “Wochenshow,” he held several key roles, and since then he has also worked as a director for film and advertising.
In 2004, his feature film debut “Der Wixxer” was released and became one of the most successful German films of the year. His following feature films “Vollidiot” and “Gespensterjäger” also became popular audience successes. Baumann then also served as co-founder and director of the successful sketch show “Ladykracher.” He has directed series such as “Liebes.Leben,” “Pastewka,” and “Add a Friend,” the first in-house production of the pay TV channel TNT, and TV movies such as “Zwei Weihnachtsmänner.”
In 2011, he also conceived and shot 43 country postcards for the 56th Eurovision Song Contest, which reached 70 million viewers. In 2014, he was artistic director of the German Film Awards.
For the company Brainpool, with which he is closely associated, Baumann worked as a producer and managing director for three years from 2017 to 2019. During this time, he refrained from directing and only later developed his own material such as the miniseries “ÜberWeihnachten,” which he created for Netflix as producer, showrunner, and director.
Since 2020, Tobi has been working again as a freelance director, writer, and producer and, among other projects, filmed the miniseries “Faking Hitler,” one of the first in-house productions of the streaming service RTL+, starring Lars Eidinger and Moritz Bleibtreu, together with director Wolfgang Groos.
Tobi Baumann's work has won numerous awards, including the German Television Prize, the German Comedy Prize and the Grimme Prize. He is a member of the German Film Academy.
Tobi Baumann is represented by Katrin Näher.
Faking Hitler
COMING UP
WHERE’S WANDA?
The 8-part Dark Comedy is the first German original for Apple TV+, produced by Ufa Fiction. Tobi Baumann (episode 3-8) and Christian Ditter are directing.
It stars Heike Makatsch and Axel Stein as a pair of worried parents desperately trying to find their daughter Wanda (Lea Drinda), who disappeared several months ago. As the police fail, they finally take matters into their own hands and discover that all the neighbours are hiding more than they realized.
VARIA
MONSIEUR HULOT
Dieses Bild von Jacques Tati als Mr. Hulot hängt bei mir zuhause im Büro. Es erinnert mich an meine ganz besondere Beziehung zu Frankreich und daran, dass Comedy nicht unbedingt laut sein muss.
Tobi Baumann