Michael Loeken was born in Neviges in 1954 and studied theater, film and television in Cologne. He made his directorial debut in 1981 with the documentary "Ich hatte schon begonnen, die Freiheit zu vergessen". From 1982 to 1996 he worked as a sound engineer on numerous documentary and feature film productions, including "Von Richtern und anderen Sympathisanten" (1982), Douglas Wolfsperger's "Probefahrt ins Paradies" (DE/CH 1992) and Thomas Bergmann's and Mischka Popp's "Herzfeuer" (1993). 

In 1996 he founded the film production company loekenfranke together with Ulrike Franke. The two made their joint directorial debut with the documentary feature "Und vor mir die Sterne..." (1998) about the life of pop singer Renate Kern.   

Their second film, "Herr Schmidt und Herr Friedrich" (2001), about two long-term unemployed people from West and East Berlin, won the audience award at the Festival of German Cinema in Mainz (today: Filmz Mainz). In "Soldatenglück und Gottes Segen" (2002), they accompanied German soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) through their private everyday lives in Afghanistan.   

A great success was "Losers and Winners" (2006), about the dismantling of the Kaiserstuhl coking plant, which was dismantled into individual parts and shipped from the Ruhr area to China, done by 400 Chinese workers who worked under extreme stress in 60-hour weeks. The film received numerous awards, including the Grimme Prize, the Critics' Award at the Chicago International Documentary Film Festival and the Golden Remi Award at the Houston International Film Festival.   

For "Arbeit Heimat Opel" (2012), the duo accompanied six young people between the ages of 16 and 19 who began their training as industrial mechanics at the car manufacterer Opel's plant in Bochum in 2009. "Göttliche Lage" (2014) depicted the progress of a massive, luxurious construction project in the Hörde district of Dortmund, on the former steelworks site of Thyssenkrupp, and how the long-established residents felt about it. This film earned Loeken and Franke another Grimme Award, the Lorry Journalism Prize and several other awards.   

In addition to his work as a filmmaker and producer, Michael Loeken is also active as a lecturer, for example at the ifs Cologne, the Filmhaus Cologne and the Media Academy of the public broadcaster ZDF. He has also realized projects with artists from other disciplines, among them the theater group Rimini Protokoll, the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, the Schauspielhaus Bochum and the Theater Dortmund. 

At the Hofer Filmtage 2021, Loeken and Franke presented their documentary "We Are All Detroit - Vom Bleiben und Verschwinden", a portrait of the industrial cities of Bochum and Detroit, their inhabitants and their problems after the departure of the car industry, which they began in 2014. The film was released in May 2022.