After studying art, germanistics and Roman languages in Düsseldorf and
Munich, she attended acting lessons.
Resides in Paris.
Member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1980.
Member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1995.
She is fluent in several languages: Italian, English and French.
In her 2018 documentary on Bergman, Von Trotta describes how it was seeing The Seventh Seal for the first time while in Paris in 1960 s that made her interested in becoming a filmmaker.