Her work on Manchevski's Before the Rain and on No Man's Land made her well-known in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Balkans. Sophie, in Mike Leigh's Naked, was her first leading role. Cartlidge worked in two more Leigh films: in Career Girls she played one of the lead roles, Hannah, at the ages of both 20 and 30, and in Topsy Turvy she was a madam in a Paris brothel. She was due to play the lead role in Polish Director Lech Majewski's 2004 film The Garden of Earthly Delights—that of an art Historian dying of cancer—but she left shortly before production began.
The impact of Cartlidge's sudden death saw the creation of the Katrin Cartlidge Foundation by the trustees Mike Leigh, Peter Gevisser, Simon McBurney, Chris Simon and Cat Villiers. The patrons include Lars von Trier and Cartlidge's sister Michelle. Established at the Sarajevo Film Festival, an annual bursary is awarded by "an elected curator, chosen by the (Foundation) Trustees from a wide and eclectic number of Katrin Cartlidge’s friends and colleagues...(to) a new creative voice... While the new talent nominated each year will be a filmmaker, it is anticipated that the choices will be as varied and extraordinary as Katrin’s own choice of filmmakers and friends from across the arts."
