Georg Nonnenmacher, born in Cologne on September 20, 1963, first devoted himself to music after his school days and played drums in various Cologne bands. Along the way, he worked as a stage technician and backliner in the concert sector. Via show and stage lighting he finally came to film lighting, from 1988 working as a lighting technician, since 1992 as head lighting technician and lighting designer.    

In these roles, he was involved in numerous productions, some international and some award-winning, including Andreas Dresen's "Sommer vorm Balkon" ("Summer in Berlin", 2005), Hany Abu Assad's "Paradise Now" (2005), Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" (2006), Hans-Christian Schmid's "Sturm" ("Storm", 2008), Chris Kraus' "Poll" (2010) and Christoph Hochhäusler's "Die Lügen der Sieger" ("The Lies of Victors", 2014).    

In addition to lighting, Nonnenmacher also worked as a writer, director and cinematographer on his own projects, mostly short films or video clips, starting in 2004. His first feature-length documentary "Spielverderber", which he realized together with Hennings Drechsler, is dedicated to the role and perspective of the referee in soccer. At the Hessian Film Award 2007, "Spielverderber" was awarded Best Documentary.   

In 2012, Nonnenmacher founded the production company Hihead-Film, which develops and realizes documentary and fictional film scripts as well as industrial and image films.    

His 40-minute directorial feature "Raumfahrer" ("Spacemen"), presented at the Berlinale's Perspektive Deutsches Kino in 2014, shows the procedure of a prisoner's transport from prison to trial in another city. In the feature-length documentary "Auf Anfang" (2021), Georg Nonnenmacher and Mike Schlömer accompanied a convicted murderer on his release after 28 years in prison and during his first months in freedom. At the Film Festival Cologne 2021, Nonnenmacher and Schlömer received the NRW Film Award for the work. It was released in theaters in March 2022.