Biography
Thomas Oberlies was born in Ludwigshafen on June 26 1972. He studied mathematics in Karlsruhe until 1999, and got a PhD from Heidelberg University in 2004. Already as a college student, he made several short films, including "Flatsch" (2000), which won the audience award at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival. His satirical short "Arbeit für alle" (2008), which features a fictitious work agency and a Zombie hunter, went on to win the audience award at the Landshut Short Film Festival and also received the award for Best Horror Short at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.
In the summer of 2013, Oberlies took part in a teaching project at a reform school in Winterhude, where students where tasked to produce a short film under the artistic supervision of Oberlies and Sebastian Natto. The result was the action short "Das Millionengrab" (2014), which premiered at the Landshut Short Film Festival.
In 2015, Oberlies helmed his feature film debut "Mannheim", an offbeat romantic comedy about three bandmates whose lives are turned upside down by a charming music student. In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Thomas Oberlies is one of the executives of the short film festival "Zum Goldenen Hirsch", which alternately runs in Mannheim and Heidelberg.