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Katrin Rothe was born in Gera in 1970. From 1992 until 1998, she studied experimental film at the Hochschule der Künste (today known as Universität der Künste) in Berlin and at the CSM in London. During that time she made her first experimental short "Bis Gras wächst" (1996). From 1999 until 2001, she completed her studies by attending the master class of Professor Heinz Emigholz at the UdK. After graduation, she founded her company Karotoon, with which she has since then produced her own films, has made internet animations and has hosted workshops.
Her first feature-length film "Dunkler Lippenstift macht seriöser" (2003) combined documentary footage and animations and addressed the phenomenon of the extensive job application process in times of the Post-"New Economy". The film garnered nominations for the German Television Award and the Prix Europa. Her four-part documentary series "Stellmichein" (2006, TV), which also combined documentary film and animated sequences, won Rothe a Grimme Award in 2007.
Rothe made her first fictional feature film with "Die Ex bin ich" (2009, TV), which is set in in the Berlin squatter scene of the early 1990s. The film again combined live action with animated sequences. Her other works include "Polen für Anfänger" (2010, TV), a documentary road movie featuring Kurt Krömer and Steffen Möller, and the documentary "Betongold - wie die Finanzkrise in mein Wohnzimmer kam" (2013, TV), which won Rothe another Grimme Award in 2014.
On January 2017, Rothe premiered her animated feature "1917 - Der wahre Oktober" at the Solothurner Filmtage. Told from the perspective of artists, poets and intellectuals of the time, the film chronicles the events and the aftermath of the Russian October Revolution. The film has been screened at numerous international festivals, including the renowned Animation Film Festival Annecy (France) and the film festivals in Moscow and Gijon. A making-of of the formally extraordinary film was shown in 2018 at the Ilmin Museum of Art in Seoul (Korea), at the Animatorium Zurich, and at Tricky Woman Vienna. In 2019, the German Institute for Animated Film (DIAF) dedicated an exhibition to Rothe at the Technische Sammlungen Dresden.
In November 2021, Rothe began shooting her next feature film: "Johnny & Me - Eine Zeitreise mit John Heartfield" ("Johnny & Me - A Journey through Time with John Heartfield" DE/AT/CH 2023). Once again, it was a documentary with animated and live-action scenes in which a young graphic designer embarks on a magical journey through the life of the influential graphic designer and artist John Heartfield (1891-1968). The film premiered at the Annecy Animation Film Festival in France in June 2023 and was released in German cinemas in January 2024.