Anna Sofie Hartmann, born 1984 in Denmark, studied for one year at the European Film College in Aarhus, Denmark, and then moved to Berlin, where she worked in the studio of the renowned artist Olafur Eliasson. In 2008 she successfully applied to the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb). Hartmann's feature film debut "Limbo" (DE/DK 2014), about the everyday life of two teenage girls in the Danish province, was shown at several international festivals and was released in German cinemas in September 2015. At the achtung berlin festival, "Limbo" won the prize of the Association of German Film Critics, and Hartmann received an honorable mention in the directing category. At the European Film Awards 2015 "Limbo" was nominated for the European Discovery Award as Best Newcomer Film.

Hartmann's second feature film, "Giraffe", which was produced by Maren Ade and her production company Komplizen Film, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland) in August 2019. Further participations in international festivals followed. At the Viennale (Austria) the film was awarded the FIPRESCI prize. In August 2020 the film was theatrically released in Germany.