Mareike Wegener was born in 1983 in Borken in the Westphalian Münsterland. After graduating from high school, she worked as an editing assistant in Hamburg before taking up studies in audiovisual media at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. This was followed by studies in documentary film directing at the New York New School, during which she also made her first documentary film "Al Hansen – The Matchstick Traveller" in 2008. Wegener then received a Gerd Ruge Fellowship, which enabled her to realize her documentary project "Mark Lombardi – Kunst und Konspiration" in 2009 about the New York artist of the same name, known for his innovative as well as controversial sociograms. The film was screened at several international festivals and was released in German cinemas in 2012. After further successful documentary and short films, Wegener's feature film debut "Echo" premiered at the Berlinale in 2022. Playing with national history and ancient myths, the film tells the story of a policewoman and traumatized Afghanistan veteran who investigates a mysterious criminal case in the northern-german province. 

Already back in 2012, Wegener founded the production cooperative Petrolio in Cologne with her former student friend Hannes Lang and Carmen Losmann, for which Wegener served as producer on Losmann's award-winning 2020 documentary "Oeconomia", among other projects.