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Annekatrin Hendel was born and raised in Berlin. After graduating in design she worked as a freelance costume and set designer. In 2004 she founded the IT WORKS! film production company in which she works as producer for feature and documentary films, director and managing director.
Her first cinema documentary as a director, "Vaterlandsverräter", premiered at the 2011 Berlinale. The film about East-German novelist Paul Gratzik became the first part of a trilogy on betrayal and won the Friedensfilmpreis at the 2011 FilmFest Osnabrück and the 2013 Grimme Award. The 2014 Berlin IFF saw the premiere of Hendel's documentary "Anderson", the second film in the trilogy, which portrays Sascha Anderson, who was part of East-Berlin's oppositional literature scene yet at the same time worked as a covert informer for the secret state police Stasi. At Filmfest Potsdam that took place in 2014 for the first time, the film won the "Preis der multireligiösen Jury" award. Next, Hendel made the documentary "Fassbinder" ("The Fassbinder Story", 2015), a portrait of the legendary filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder. As a producer, she worked on the documentaries "Das Geheimnis der Digedags" (2015) and "Über Leben in Demmin" (2017).
In the Forum section of the Berlin IFF 2017, she then presented her documentary feature "Fünf Sterne" ("Five Stars"), an intimate and very personal portrait of the artist Ines Rastig (1965-2016). The film won the Heiner-Carow-Preis in Berlin. With "Familie Brasch" (2018), Hendel completed her trilogy on betrayal that she had begun with "Vaterlandsverräter" and "Anderson". In the documentary, she elaborates on the history of the Brasch family. In this family of the GDR intelligentsia, the father, a staunch party official, went so far as to press charges against his own critically-minded son. "Familie Brasch" premiered at Filmfest München and was released in German movie theaters in August 2018.
At the same time, she made the film "Schönheit & Vergänglichkeit" (2019), a portrait of Sven Marquardt, the legendary bouncer of the Berlin techno club Berghain, who also gained recognition as a photographer. Hendel was awarded the Heiner Carow Prize at the 2019 Berlinale for this film. During the Covid pandemic, Hendel made "Vertreibung ins Paradies", in which she followed her patchwork family through the phases of the pandemic, turning it into a satirical and humorous look at today's society.
Hendel also produced and co-produced documentaries with other directors, including "Space Dogs" (2919), "Liebe Angst" (2022) and "Das vergessene Volk" (2023).
In April 2024 her next own movie was released: "Union - Die Besten aller Tage", a portrait of the cult soccer club 1. FC Union Berlin.
Annekatrin Hendel is a member of the German Film Academy.