Oliver Ziegenbalg was born in Böblingen on September 19th 1971. Between 1991 and 1998, he studied mathematical economics in Karlsruhe and during that time also got a degree in media art and film from the Karlsruhe School of Design.

Later, he relocated to Berlin and began working as a screenwriter for television and feature films. Among his scripts which made it to the screen are the war comedy "U-900" (2008), the adventure spoof "1 ½ Ritter – Auf der Suche nach der hinreißenden Herzelinde" ("1 1/2 Knights", 2008), the witty college romp "13 Semester" (2009) and the road movie "Friendship!" (2010), starring Matthias Schweighöfer.

In 2011, Ziegenbalg made his feature film debut as director when he replaced Oliver Schmitz on the production of "Russendisko" ("Russian Disco"), for which Ziegenbalg also wrote the screenplay. The finished film was released in the spring of 2012 and turned out to be a box office success. It was nominated for the audience award at the 2013 German Film Awards.

Nevertheless, Ziegenbalg primarily focused on his career as a writer. His script for Sönke Wortmann's "Frau Müller muss weg" ("Ms. Mueller Must Go", 2015) won the Bavarian Film Award and was followed by his screenplays for "Becks letzter Sommer" ("Beck's Last Summer", 2015), "Mein Blind Date mit dem Leben" (2016) and "Kundschafter des Friedens" ("Old Agent Men", 2017).

In 2017, two road movies scripted by Ziegenbalg went into production: "25 km/h", directed by Markus Goller, and "Caravan", co-written and directed by Sebastian Schipper.