Narges Kalhor was born on September 10, 1984, in Tehran, Iran. In 2002, she began studying filmmaking at Beh-andish College in Tehran, where Abbas Kiarostami was among her instructors. Concurrently, in 2004, she started working as an editor for the Tehran-based advertising and film production company ARASB. From 2006 to 2008, she pursued studies in graphic design. During her academic years, Kalhor created several short experimental films. 

In 2009, Kalhor participated in protests against the Iranian presidential elections. In October 2009, she presented her critical short film "Darkhish   " at the Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival (NIHRFF) in a special section dedicated to Iran. Subsequently, she was warned that returning to Iran could lead to political persecution. As a result, Kalhor successfully applied for asylum in Germany. This decision was significant given that her father, Mehdi Kalhor, served as a senior media and cultural advisor to then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

From 2010 to 2019, she studied documentary filmmaking and television journalism at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF). At HFF, she directed several experimental and short films. Together with Benedikt Schwarzer, she co-directed the 30-minute documentary "SHOOT ME" (2013), which was nominated for the German Short Film Award and the German Human Rights Film Award 2014.

Her graduation film from HFF, "In the Name of Scheherazade or the First Beergarden in Tehran" (2019), blended experimental film, essay film, and documentary to reflect on her personal experience as a woman between Germany and Iran. The film explored the hypothetical scenario of opening a Bavarian beer garden in Iran. It premiered at the Vision du Réel Documentary Film Festival in Nyon, Switzerland, in 2019, and won the Documentary Film Award from the Goethe-Institut at the DOK Leipzig festival. Kalhor received the Culture Prize of Bavaria (Science Prize) and the Starter Film Prize from the City of Munich. Despite this recognition, her film did not receive theatrical distribution in Germany but premiered in Switzerland in early 2020.

In 2023, Kalhor's experimental short film "Sensitive Content," which juxtaposed mobile phone videos from Iranians into a found-footage documentary, won the 3sat Young Talent Award at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival. At the Berlinale Forum in 2024, she presented her autobiographical feature film "Shahid," which narrates her bureaucratic challenges in changing her name in an experimental and partly theatrical manner. "Shahid" received the Cicae Art Cinema Award and the Caligari Film Award at the Berlinale. The film premiered in German cinemas in August 2024.