Hannes Stöhr is a German film director and screenwriter. He studied scriptwriting and directing at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin from 1994 to 1999. In 2006 Stöhr was a Villa Aurora grant recipient and lived for six months in Los Angeles, California. Hannes speaks German, Spanish, English, French and Portuguese. Stöhr is member of the European Filmacademy, lectures film at Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin and the Goethe Institute. He lives in Berlin.

The Villa Aurora at 520 Paseo Miramar is located in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles and has been transformed into an artists' residence since 1995. It is the former home of the German-Jewish author Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta. The Feuchtwangers bought this Spanish-style mansion in 1943. The house was a popular meeting place for artists and the community of German-speaking émigrés. Lion Feuchtwanger wrote six of his historical novels in this house: The Day Will Come, Proud Destiny, The Jewess of Toledo, Tis folly to be wise, Jephthah and his Daughter, and This is the Hour.