Judith Gardner was born in 1971 and grew up in Bavaria. She studied at the Deutsche Journalistenschule and at the Ludwigs-Maximilian-University, both in Munich. Following her graduation, she worked freelance for the children's television channel KIKA, for which she realized, among other things, a segment on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Augsburger Puppenkiste in 1998, a popular German marionette theater. She became fascinated with the topic and completed an internship with the Puppenkiste. A year later, she joined the ensemble and trained as a puppet master. Since then, she has been working with them, directing plays, voice acting and developing her own stories. Together with Julian Köberer, she directed the marionette feature film "Geister der Weihnacht" (2018), an adaptation of Charles Dickens' "Christmas Carol", a production for which she also wrote the screenplay.