Born in Leiden (NL) in 1972, Matthias Luthardt grew up in the Netherlands, Southern Germany and Hamburg. After his social service and a 6-months-residency in Lyon he studied German and French literature as well as Media Culture in Tübingen, Paris and Hamburg University (dissertation about the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski). In 1998 he started directing class at the filmschool HFF Potsdam-Babelsberg. Among his teachers were Margarethe von Trotta, Andreas Dresen, Michael Ballhaus. In 2001/2002, M.L. took part in the first Masterclass of the German-French Film Academy (Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris), tutored by German filmmakers Peter Sehr und Jan Schütte: workshops on film production, storytelling and scriptwriting, independent filmmaking and documentary film, taking place at the film academy in Ludwigsburg and the FEMIS in Paris.
He finished Potsdam filmschool with his first feature film PINGPONG, premiered 2006 at Critics' Week in Cannes, winning the SACD-Award and Young Critics Award and a nomination as "European discovery" at the European Film Awards.
Matthias Luthardt contributed to the episodic documentary JESUS LOVES YOU (Berlinale 2008) before realizing his second feature film MEMORY. In 2009, he took part in the multimedia documentary 24h Berlin, which portrays the city of Berlin, followed up by 24h Jerusalem in 2013.
Matthias Luthardt is regularly teaching at filmschools and cultural institutions in Germany and abroad (in German, English and French). In 2011, film director Tom Tykwer asked him to supervise the script development and shooting of the Kenyan feature film SOMETHING NECESSARY, directed by Judy Kibinge. The year before, Matthias Luthardt had initiated and coproduced the independent feature film WHITE SHADOW, directed by Noaz Deshe, shot in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival 2013, won the "Lion of the Future"-Award and also screened at Sundance Film Festival 2014. In 2012, Matthias Luthardt spent three months in Tel Aviv as an artist-in-residence, invited by the Israel Film Fund and the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. He is a member of the European Filmacademy.

LUISE, his last feature film, will be premiered at the 2023 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) - Harbour selection.