Claus Withopf has been producing documentaries and short feature films, music videos and commercials in Germany and the USA as an independent filmmaker since 1997. His films have been screened and awarded at international film festivals. Withopf studied at the City University of New York, film and photography at the HfG Offenbach and art at the Freie Kunstakademie Mannheim. After graduating from HfG Offenbach with a degree in film design in 2001, he received a DAAD postgraduate scholarship and studied screenwriting, directing and cinematography in feature film and documentary at the City College of New York (CUNY). There he was awarded the Bert Saperstein Scholarship by the MFA Film Program in 2003. In New York, he worked as a director, cinematographer and screenwriter on various film projects as well as an AVID editor for a New York TV production. In 2000 he founded the Claus Withopf Filmproduktion. His feature documentary "Anne Clark - I'll Walk Out Into Tomorrow" celebrated its world premiere in 2017 at the DOK Leipzig International Film Festival. In 2018, the documentary was released nationwide, followed by theatrical release in Austria and Switzerland. The London premiere took place as part of the Doc'n Roll Film Festival. 

Claus Withopf has been teaching at the HfG Offenbach am Main since 2007. He is the founder and director of the VideoLab in the Department of Art.