Sebastian Stern was born in Deggendorf in 1979. Already intent on becoming a filmmaker as a high school student, he gathered first experiences during internships on film and TV productions. In 2001, he enrolled at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (HFF) in Munich to study film direction.

As a student, he helmed several shorts, including "Fang des Lebens" (2004), which won the second prize at the 2005 Landshut Short Film Festival. Moreover, he contributed to the omnibus film "Neun" (2005) and the episodic short "Nichts weiter als" (2006), for which several directors interpreted the same basic premise.

Stern's graduation project "Die Hummel" (2010), which also marked his feature-length debut, screened at the 2010 Munich Film Festival. The tragicomedy about a salesman whose bourgeois existence is about to get ruined won Stern the Bavarian Film Award for Best Emerging Filmmaker.

In 2014, Stern received the Spreewald Literatur grant for the screenplay to his sophomore feature film "Der Hund begraben". Relating the story of a family man who loses his job and subsequently enters a life crisis, the film's principal photography took place in early 2016. The production wrapped the same year, and after its premiere at the 2016 Hofer Filmtage, the film was released in March 2017.