Graduated from the Film Academy in 2009, he developed a distinctive style of filmmaker resulting in internationally awarded films such as Time within Time (2009), Via Dolorosa (2013) and Face to Face (2014).

Besides documentaries, video-clips and experimental films, Menno Otten directed several video-installations commissioned by companies like Samsung, Sikkens, Philips, The Dutch Royal Concert Hall and the Eye Film Museum.

His video-art work Girl Reading Letter at an Open Window, in which Menno Otten explores the possibilities of moving light within the work of Johannes Vermeer, was exhibited at the Museum Prinsenhof in Delft and at the Pushkin Museum of Arts in Moscow.

For his video-installation Moving Mesdag, Menno Otten teamed up with Samsung and ConspiracySinc to bring to life the famous Dutch masterpiece Panorama Mesdag. This ambitious video-installation was completed in 2016 and was shown on fourteen 85" inch curved screens and displayed in front of the famous Rijksmuseum among other key locations in the Netherlands. Moving Mesdag attracted more then 65.000 visitors in 3 weeks.

Summer 2017, Menno Otten brought the multi-media installation "City Faces" to the Triumph Gallery in Moscow. Besides video-installations, Menno Otten showed a collection of more then thirty portraits he shot between 2010 and 2015 at one and the same tramstop in Amsterdam.

As an editor Menno Otten worked on several documentaries and video-installations. Editing work include Submarine Channel's "Unspeak", Peter Delpeut's "One hand Clapping" (Winner DDG Award) and "Dedicated to Dance", Jaap van Heusden's "A.sy.lum" (Nominated for a Gouden Kalf), Masha Osipova's "Sanatorium" (CameraImage), Misja Pekel's feature documentary: "Maalstroom".

In 2019 Menno created and directed the television series: HOOFDZAKEN for Dutch Broadcaster VPRO. In 2020 the second season will air on national television.

Since 2010 Menno Otten is teaching Directing Documentary, Film History and Film Theory at the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam.