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Anna Roller was born in Munich in 1993. She started to get interested in filmmaking when she got a camera for her 14th birthday. Shortly thereafter, she began shooting her first short films with friends and family as actors, including a "sequel" to "The Lord of the Rings". Eventually, she even received financial support from the "In Eigener Regie" youth film funding program, which increased the professionalism of her teenage projects.
After graduating from high school, Roller wanted to study directing, but film school advisors suggested she "gain more life experience" first. So she traveled to India and Ecuador and worked for six months at the Munich commercial production company e&p and as an assistant director at the Neuköllner Opera.
Later, she successfully applied to the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF), where she began her directing studies in 2014. At HFF, she created several short films that screened at numerous international festivals and won prestigious awards. Her fantasy short film, "Pan" (2017), received the 'Startfilmpreis' of the City of Munich (awarded to producer Tanja Schmidbauer). The somber sibling drama "Die letzten Kinder im Paradies" (2018) won the directing prize at the Bundesfestival junger Film and the Emerging Talent Award at the German Cinematography Award (for cinematographer Felix Pflieger). Her short film "Gör" (2021), rural mother-son story, won the Golden Lola at the German Short Film Award in the category of films under 10 minutes.
Anna Roller made her feature film debut with her HFF graduation film "Dead Girls Dancing" (2023). The road movie, about three high school graduates stranded in an abandoned Italian mountain village and exploring the limits of their newfound freedom, premiered simultaneously at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and Filmfest München in June 2023. The German theatrical release followed in November of the same year.