May Spils was born in 1941 near Bremen as Maria-Elisabeth Maier-Spils. After graduating from high school, she tried her hand as a foreign correspondent in Hamburg. Later she took acting lessons in Bremen, worked as a model and took over smaller film roles. She was co-founder of the "Münchner Gruppe" whose goal was to produce their own movies. She celebrated her first successes as a director in 1966 with the short films "Das Portrait" ("The Portrait") and "Manöver" ("Manoeuvres"). With the movie "Zur Sache, Schätzchen" ("Go for It, Baby!", 1968) came the big breakthrough.

Source: Festival des deutschen Films 2011