Carmen Tartarotti was born in South Tyrol in 1950. She studied German Literature and Politics in Frankfurt, and since 1979, she has been working as a filmmaker in Germany, Austria and Italy. In 1980, she completed her first short film "Kribus-Krabus-Domine". The following years, she directed several short features and documentaries. "1 Häufchen Blume 1 Häufchen Schuh", her non-fictional portrait of poet Friederike Mayröcker, won the Film Award of Munich in 1988. Her feature-length documentary "Paradiso del Cevedale" (1992) received an award at the International Competition Film and Architecture in Graz and also won the Förderpreis of Kulturwerk Munich.

Between 1997 and 2007, Tartarotti created video installations in museums in Ahrntal and Tyrol along with her film work. Her most recent documentary, "Das Schreiben und das Schweigen", again about Friederike Mayröcker, premiered at the 2008 Viennale and went on to win the 2009 Hessian Film Award and the 2010 Lichter Filmpreis.