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Ralf Huettner was born in Munich on November 29th, 1954 and attended the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen (HFF) in Munich from 1981 to 1989. With his first film, the modern day fairy tale "Das Mädchen mit den Feuerzeugen", Huettner already earned critical acclaim as early as 1987. In the following years, Huettner proved himself to be an exceedingly versatile mainstream director with movies ranging from the political satire "Der Papagei" to Helge Schneider's comedy "Texas – Doc Snyder hält die Welt in Atem".
After scoring a huge success with the anarchic "Voll Normaaal" starring Tom Gerhardt, Huettner and actor Dominic Raacke developed "Um die 30", a TV series which shed a self-deprecating light on the everyday life and problems of a whole generation. Then Huettner changed genres for "Der kalte Finger", a psychological thriller which – despite strong actors and an atmospheric production – neither sparked a large success at the box office nor received much critical acclaim.
But with "Die Musterknaben", a crook comedy based on two easy-going but clumsy detectives – played full of verve by Oliver Korittke and Jürgen Tarrach –, Huettner scored another huge success at the box office which allowed him to do two sequels to "Die Musterknaben". "Mondscheintarif", based on Ildiko von Kürthy's best selling novel, proved once more Huettner‘s touch for successful mainstream movies. Indeed, many critics pointed out that Huettner is actually too talented to produce movies for the mainstream market only. But after the success of "Mondscheintarif", Huettner – who also wrote the screenplays to most of his films – directed "Reine Formsache", another romantic comedy.
After two feature-length TV productions, the comedy "Putzfrau Under Cover" and the adventure romp "Die Jagd nach dem Schatz der Nibelungen", Huettner returns to the big screen in 2010: "Vincent will Meer" tells the story of a young man suffering from Tourette syndrome, who goes on a trip to the Italian seaboard against the will of his strict father. With over one million admissions, "Vincent will Meer" turned out to be a box office hit. Moreover, it won both the audience and the screenplay award at the 2010 Bavarian Film Awards, and took home the awards for Best Actor (Florian David Fitz) and Best Picture at the 2011 German Film Awards.
After directing Joachim Król in "Ausgerechnet Sibirien" (2012), Huettner helmed the adaptation of Martin Suter's novel "Der Koch" (DE/CH 2014). In 2016, he directed "Burg Schreckenstein", which is based on the eponymous children's book series.