Katayoon Shahabi has a PhD in French literature. In 1985, she started her work as a film promoter in “Farabi Cinema Foundation” (FCF), which had the important role of introducing Iranian Cinema to the world.

During this period, she worked with well-known filmmakers such as Abbas Kiarostami, Bahram Beizaei, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, etc.

In 1994, she co-founded “Cima Media International (CMI)”, a semi-private company that produced and marketed Iranian films and television productions. Her activity in this
company allowed her to gain experience in co-producing successful documentaries and feature films among them is “Traveller from the South” by Parviz Shahbazi. The film attended more than 40 festivals around the world.
In 2001, she launched her own private company, “Sheherazad Media International” (SMI), which rapidly gained a reputation for its keen eye to discover new talented directors, such as Asghar Farhadi, Mohammad Rasoulof, Behnam Behzadi as well as collaborating with well-established filmmakers like Rakhshan Banietemad.
Katayoon Shahabi launched her France-based company, Noori Pictures in 2012 in order to expand her work more efficiently on an international level.

Since then, she has continued to produce and distribute features and documentaries of promising young directors such as Ida Panahandeh with “Nahid” (Un Certain Regard of Cannes 2015), Vahid Jalilvand with“Wednesday, May 9” (Orizzonti of Venice competition 2015) and “No Date, No Signature”(Orizzonti of Venice competition 2017), Berit Madsen with “Sepideh” (IDFA 2013 and Sundance 2014), and … On sixteen occasions, she has been a jury member in different international festivals such as IDFA, San Sebastian Film Festival (as Chairwoman), and the main competition of Cannes Film Festival in 2016.
She is a Member of the Documentary and Fiction Producers Guild in Iran.