Born in Tehran, Niki Karimi began her work as an actress with films such as Sara by Dariush Mehrjui, for which she won the best actress award at the San Sebastian Film Festival and at the Nantes Film Festival in 1992. She then worked on more than 25 films which brought her awards both nationally and internationally, like at the Taormina Film Festival in Italy, the Cairo Film Festival in Egypt and the Fajr Film Festival in Tehran, together with Best Actress awards from the Iranian film Society. In 2001, she began her career as a filmmaker with a documentary about infertility: To Have or Not to Have. Her first feature film, One Night (2004), was in the Cannes Film Festival "Un Certain Regard" selection and subsequently shown at numerous international film festivals. In 2006, she made her second feature film, A Few Days Later which premiered at the Rome Film Festival.