Biography
Florian Dietrich was born in 1986 in Wiesbaden, Germany. After finishing secondary school, he gained his first professional experience as an assistant director at the Wiesbaden State Theatre before studying Media Dramaturgy in Mainz from 2005 to 2007. He then began directing studies at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (dffb) in 2007, which included a nine-month exchange at the Film Department of Tel Aviv University.
During his studies, Dietrich directed several short films that screened at international festivals. His nine-minute short "Flucht nach Vorn" (2012) won the award for Best National Short Film at the 2013 Filmfest Dresden.
Dietrich made his feature debut with his dffb graduation film "Toubab" (2020), a tragicomedy about a Senegalese man who tries to avoid deportation through a sham marriage with his best friend. The film won the Audience Award at the Warsaw Film Festival, as well as the Acting Prize, Audience Award, and NDR Directing Award at the Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It also earned Dietrich the New Faces Award for Best Debut Film. "Toubab" was released in German cinemas in September 2021.
Following his graduation, Dietrich directed several episodes of the comedy series "Doppelhaushälfte" (2021/22) and the fairy-tale thriller series "The Grimm Reality" (2023) - the latter, however, was ultimately not released by Netflix for undisclosed reasons.
In autumn 2025, Dietrich's second feature film "No Hit Wonder" premiered in German cinemas. The comedy follows a mentally unstable former pop star (Florian David Fitz) who takes part in a happiness researcher's experimental project in a psychiatric ward. His next film project, a new cinematic adaptation of Erich Kästner's classic children's novel "Emil and the Detectives", is scheduled for release in 2026.