Norbert Baumgarten was born in Bautzen in 1973. After graduating from school and and completing an apprenticeship as a toolmaker he moved to Berlin in 1992 and worked as line producer and assistant director for several film and TV productions. At the same time, he started to work on his own projects and tried himself as a video artist, set designer and author for childrens" and youth plays. In 1997, Baumgarten enrolled at the film academy HFF Konrad Wolf in Potsdam. Studying direction, he already helmed an episode on the TV series "Achterbahn" in 2001. In 2003, his graduation project "Befreite Zone" also marked his feature film debut. The film, which depicts the social realities in a small town in East-Germany, premiered at the 2003 Berlinale and had a cinema release in 2004. Baumgarten"s second feature film "Mensch Kotschie", a satirical look on one man"s midlife crisis, was released in 2010.