Iranian Influential Women: Katayoon Shahabi (1963-Present)

October 20, 2023

4 min read

A Separation, a film produced by Katayoon Shahabi’s company, won an Oscar in 2012

Katayoon Shahabi is the CEO of the first private Iranian company to distribute Iranian-made movies and documentaries around the world

Katayoon Shahabi was also banned from leaving Iran, and when the restriction was lifted she left for France where she registered in 2012 a new company, Noori Pictures, before returning to Iran

Katayoon Shahabi is the CEO of the first private Iranian company to distribute Iranian films around the world.

Born in 1963, Katayoon has a PhD. in French literature. Before the 1979 revolution, she went to France for her high school education but in 1982, at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, she returned to Iran and, in 1984, she started working as a film promoter at the Farabi Cinema Foundation (FCF), which was set up to support the Iranian cinema.

During her time with the foundation, she gained valuable experience and knowledge by working with directors such as Abbas Kiarostami for Where Is the Friend’s Home?, Nasser Taghvaee for Captain Khorshid and Bahram Beyzaei for Bashu, the Little Stranger, and also by helping to organize festivals such as Fajr International Film Festival and International Film Festival for Children and Youth in Isfahan.

She resigned from the Farabi Cinema Foundation in 1991 and, in 1994, she had a pivotalrole in the foundation of Cima Media International (CMI), a semi-private company that produced and marketed Iranian films and television productions (documentaries, fiction series and short films) internationally, where she served as the executive manager for nine years. These productions brought many honors and awards to Iran.

Katayoon’s contributions while at CMI included the restoration of valuable but forgotten old documentaries and feature films with the latest available technology. The films were screened or sold to international film archives so that movie fans across the world could have access to them. Still Life by Sohrab Shahid Saless and films by Amir Naderi and Parviz Kimiavi were among them. Katayoon’s activity in this company also allowed her to gain experience in co-producing successful documentaries and feature films.

In 1995, for the first time in Iran, Katayoon organized Tehran International Market (TIM) to buy and sell films and TV productions at an international level and to arrange joint productions with other countries. Katayoon Shahabi remained the executive director of TIM for three years, until the International Fajr Film Festival took it over.

In 2001, Katayoon founded her own company, Sheherazad Media International (SMI), which very quickly came to dominate the industry for the distribution of Iranian films. SMI introduced acclaimed Iranian directors like Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Mohammad Rasoulof, Kiumars Pourahmad and, of course, Asghar Farhadi to international audiences.

Katayoon Shahabi collaborated as a producer in joint productions and projects, especially in Iran, with countries such as Japan and Singapore and most member countries in Europe’s Schengen Area. Joint productions that have been very well received included Shah Mosque of Isfahan in the Architecture of World’s Prominent Buildings collection, with France, the documentaries A Brief Peace with the Netherlands and Sepideh with Denmark.

She produced documentaries such as Moving up, Nessa , 21 Days and Me, Unwelcome in Tehran, and From Iran, a Separation with young Iranian directors. She also distributed internationally documentaries by Baktash Abtin, Mohammad Hassan Damanzan, Mohsen Ostad Ali and Mahmoud Rahmani.

In 2010, she was nominated her as the “Model Exporter of Iranian cultural products.” On September 17, 2011, Katayoon and six other filmmakers were arrested on charges of “spying for the BBC Persian Service.” The authorities claimed that the documentaries aired by the BBC were illegal and painted “a black picture of Iran and Iranians.” The seven accused were taken to Tehran’s Evin Prison.

The arrests led to international protests. After spending 54 days in jail, Katayoon Shahabi was released on bail but she lost the license for her company.

Katayoon Shahabi was also banned from leaving Iran, and when the restriction was lifted she left for France where she registered in 2012 a new company, Noori Pictures, before returning to Iran. With the new company, she was able to expand her activities of joint production and international distribution of Iranian works and achieve many successes. Among these successes were films such as Tales, Nahid, No Date, No Signature and Inversion, some of which have which won awards at international film festivals like Cannes and Venice.

Katayoon Shahabi is a member of both documentary and fiction producers’ guilds. She has been a jury member at international film festivals such as San Sebastian (as chairwoman), the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and Mannheim-Heidelberg. She served as jury member for the main competition section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the third Iranian to be selected for this jury after Abbas Kiarostami and Leila Hatami.

In 2017, Katayoon Shahabi received the title of Commander of Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture.

With the increase of restrictions on Iranian producers by the government of the Islamic Republic in recent years, Katayoon Shahabi was forced to produce movies outside the country. She produced Hava, Maryam, Ayesha in Afghanistan in 2019 and Banu in Azerbaijan three years later. Both movies were screened at the Venice Film Festival.