In 2008, the MoMA celebrated his film Das Himmler-Projekt [de] (The Himmler Project) as one of the top 250 most important artistic acquisitions of the Museum since 1980.

He has been invited as one of the four artists (together with Ai Weiwei, Santu Mofokeng and Dayanita Singh) to represent Germany at the German Pavilion at the Art Venice Biennale in 2013.

He directed several short and mid-length films, including Coup de Boule (1987), which shows young French soldiers head-butting in locker rooms, Gallodrome (1988), about cockfighting in northern France, Dogs of Velvet and Steel (1989), about owners of pitbulls in the pimp scene of Hamburg, Sam Shaw on John Cassavetes, about the producer of Gloria, by John Cassavetes, and Demontage IX- Unternehmen Stahlglocke, about a performance of the Austrian artist FLATZ, in which he crashes between two metal plates while hanging upside down on a rope.

The shooting for Warheads took place in a paramilitary training camp in Mississippi, French Guiana, and in the midst of the civil war in Croatia in 1991.

His first feature-length film, Deathmaker (1995), was based on psychiatriatric interrogations with the serial killer Fritz Haarmann conducted by his prison psychiatrist in 1924.

Taking place exclusively in a small prison interrogation room, Deathmaker belongs to the Kammerspiel, or chamberplay, genre of German film.

Frankfurt Millennium was presented alongside films by Hal Hartley, Don McCellar, Walther Salles, and Tsai Ming-liang.

Karmakar then directed Manila [de] (2000), a fictional ensemble film starring Margit Carstensen, Michael Degen, Herbert Feuerstein, Elizabeth McGovern, Sky Dumont, Peter Rühring, Martin Semmelrogge, Jürgen Vogel, and Manfred Zapatka.

His work in the electronic music scene led to the creation of what would later be referred to as the Club Land Trilogy, consisting of 196 BPM, Between the Devil and the Wide Blue Sea, and Villalobos.

Karmakar also contributed to Fruits of Confidence, a project produced and directed by Alexander Kluge, a highly influential figure in postwar German cinema.

Karamakar's contributory short film was titled Ralf Otterpohl, Wasserspezialist, and features interviews with a professor from Hamburg, who is an expert in water treatment.

Susanne Gaensheimer, Director of the MMK Museum fur Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main selected Karmakar along with Ai Weiwei, Santu Mofokeng, and Dayanita Singh to represent Germany with artistic exhibitions at the German Pavilion.