Lena Karbe was born in 1986 in Saint Petersburg, Russia (back then USSR). From 2006 to 2011 she completed a Bachelor's degree in Performing Arts at Saint Petersburg State University and Bard College, New York. In parallel, she studied art history in Paris for two semesters (2009-2010). After her double degree with honors in Saint Petersburg and New York, she did her Master's in Film Aesthetics at Oxford University in England (2011-2012). In Germany, she successfully applied to the Munich University of Television and Film (HFF), where she studied production and media business from 2013 to 2018.

While still a student, Karbe founded the production company Karbe Film. She also participated in various international funding programs, including Berlinale Talents and the IDFA Lab in Amsterdam. Karbe made her directorial debut with the docu-series "Chinese Dream" (2018, co-directed with Tristan Coloma), about African immigration to China. The series premiered at the 2018 Hof Film Festival and screened at numerous festivals around the world. On the same topic, Karbe produced Inigo Westmeier's long documentary "Black China" (2020). As a producer, she was also involved in the feature films "#Wannadie" (2017) and "All I Never Wanted" (2019). The documentary "Chaddr - Unter uns der Fluss" ("Chaddr: A River Between Us", 2020, directed by Minsu Park), produced by Karbe Film, was awarded the FFF-Förderpreis for Best Documentary at DOK.fest Munich.

Karbe's own feature-length debut "Black Mambas," about a South African all-female anti-poaching unit, premiered at the CPH:Dox festival in Copenhagen in 2022, where it won the F:ACT Award. At the Docs Fest in Pordenone, Italy, the film received the Green Documentary Award. Numerous other festival participations followed. The German theatrical release was in November 2022.