Alain Gsponer, born March 10, 1976, in Zürich, Switzerland, studied at Bern’s Schule für Gestaltung from 1996 to 1997 and simultaneously (since 1993) served as the co-operator of an arthouse cinema in Aarau. In 1997, he went to Film Academy Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg where he also worked as a radio reporter during the time of his studies. His 55-minute long graduation film "Kiki & Tiger" ("Kiki and Tiger", 2002) won the Audience Award and the Interfilm Award at Saarbrücken’s Film Festival "Max Ophuels Preis". After the TV movies "Rose" (2005) that won the Eastman Promotional Award at the Hof International Film Festival as well as the 2007 German Television Award, the tragicomic film "Das wahre Leben" ("Life Actually", 2006, winner of the 2009 Grimme Award), starring Katja Riemann and Ulrich Noethen, and the "Polizeiruf 110" episode "Wie ist die Welt so stille" (2008), Gsponer finished his second feature-length film for the movie screen in 2009, the tragicomedy "Lila, Lila" based on Martin Suter’s novel by the same name.