Betty Lerche is a German filmmaker, writer, and film artist based in Berlin. Her artistic career spans four decades across experimental cinema, documentary filmmaking, and video art, alongside her work as a curator and jury member at international film festivals.

She began her film studies at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB) before continuing at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, where she studied Independent Cinema in the film class of renowned avant-garde filmmaker Peter Kubelka. She later became Kubelka’s master student and continued her cinematic development in Vienna and at Anthology Film Archives in New York, where she worked with Jonas Mekas.

Lerche has created numerous short, documentary, and experimental films, including Rose, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Amor, Wald Berge Schön, and Shadows, and When Icebirds Catch Fire (2024) as her latest work. She has also collaborated on several films with German filmmaker Lothar Lambert. Some of her films are held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Beyond filmmaking, Lerche works as a curator and is a member of the Film-Makers’ Cooperative New York, docfilm42, and EVINI FILMS, where she works alongside filmmaker Jano Rosebiani.

At the 7th edition of the Kobani International Film Festival 2026, Betty Lerche serves as a Jury Member, bringing her extensive experience in independent, experimental, and documentary cinema, as well as film curation and international jury work.