Laurentia Genske was born in Cologne in 1989, where she studied documentary film and camera at the Academy of Media Arts (KHM) from 2010 to 2016. As part of a KHM scholarship, she completed a year of study at the International Film School in Cuba (EICTV) in 2012. There she shot the footage for the short documentary "El Manguito", about Cuban black market traders, which she completed in 2017. During her studies, she also directed the camera for several student projects and for documentaries produced by the Cologne-based production company A&O Büro.

Also during her studies, Genske realized the feature-length documentary "Am Kölnberg" (2014), about the high-rise housing estate of the same name in Cologne, together with Robin Humboldt. The film was awarded the HDF (Haus des Dokumentarfilms Stuttgart) sponsorship prize at the German Documentary Film Award and won the BildKunst Schnittpreis at the Cologne festival Filmplus. Genske's second feature-length film "Afuera" (2015) premiered at the Leipzig DOK Fest and was invited to other renowned festivals.

In 2017, she completed the short film "El Manguito" (2017), which won the 3sat Förderpreis at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival. The following year, together with Robin Humboldt, she began shooting the long documentary "Zuhurs Töchter" ("Zuhur's Daughters"), about two Syrian trans siblings who fled to Germany with their parents and find themselves in a constant conflict between cultures as they search for their own identity. Three years later, in May 2021, the film screened at the Munich DOK.fest, where it won the main prize Viktor.