Peter Lilienthal was born 1929 in Berlin and emigrated with his mother in 1939 to Uruguay. He studied art history and law at the University of Montevideo and joined the university film club where he worked on socially critical short films. 

Lilienthal returned to Berlin in 1954, and two years later received a scholarship to study at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris. He transferred to the HdK in Berlin, where he first studied painting and design, then experimental photography and film. From 1959-1961, Lilienthal worked as a director and production assistant for the Südwestfunk and from 1961-1964 as a director for the same television station. In 1964, he moved to Berlin and worked as a freelance director mainly for the Radio Free Berlin. Peter Lilienthal’s film Malatesta debuted in 1970.

From 1985-1996, Peter Lilienthal was director of the Department of Film and Media at the HdK in Berlin. He currently is teaching at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and at the DFFB in Berlin.