Katja Riemann was born November 1, 1963, in Kirchweyhe near Bremen. From 1984 to 1987, she took actor"s training at Hanover"s Hochschule für Musik und Theater and at Munich"s Falckenbergschule. Riemann gave her first performances at Munich"s Kammerspiele and at Berlin"s Schillertheater and made her TV debut in 1986 in the historical TV movie "Sommer in Lesmona" directed by Peter Beauvais, a role which won her the Adolf Grimme prize.

In 1993 Riemann made her breaktrough performance in Katja von Garnier"s surprisingly successful movie "Abgeschminkt" ("Making Up"). She then starred alongside Til Schweiger in Sönke Wortmann"s romantic comedy "Der bewegte Mann" ("Maybe, maybe not")and Rainer Kaufmann"s "Stadtgespräch" ("Talk of the Town"). Both movies saw Riemann in the role of an emancipated woman whose emancipation does not pose a threat to anyone and precisely ends at the point where she finds a strong man she can subordinate to.

Katja von Garnier"s second movie "Bandits", the story about members of a female rock band who escape from prison, became a box office hit, too. For this movie, Riemann even learned to play the drums. In the following years Riemann starred in films like Joseph Vilsmaier"s "Comedian Harmonists" (1997), Rainer Kaufmann"s "Long Hello and Short Goodbye" (1998/99), Margarethe von Trotta"s "Rosenstraße" (2003) und Oskar Roehler"s "Agnes und seine Brüder" ("Agnes and his brothers", 2004).

Furthermore, Riemann played the witch Barbara Blocksberg in the "Bibi Blocksberg" movies (2002 and 2004). Critics have questioned the similarity of her parts in Riemann"s popular movies but generally tend to be sympathetic towards her performances: "Viewers do not envy Katja Riemann. In her films, she comes across as an everyday woman. Her private life does not take place among rich producers and millionaires and her attractiveness does not overextend the viewers" grasp" (Mahrenholz, 1996).