Tbilisi International Film Festival was first held in 2000 within a larger art festival framework, Gift which had numerous supporters and sponsors. Consequently, the festival at that time had interesting and diverse program. In 2002 the festival faced closure threat and a circle of friends and co-thinkers (Gaga Chkheidze, Nino Anjaparidze, Lasha Bakradze, Davit Bukhrikidze, Besik Danelia, Guga Kotetishvili, Gaga Lomidze and Giorgi Kajrishvili) decided to set up the Cinema Art Center, Prometheus to maintain it and run other projects too. In 2002 the Cinema Art Center, Prometheus organized the festival with its scarce financial resources.
Ultimately, Prometheus succeeded in attracting attention of governmental agencies and in 2004 the Georgian National Film Centre provided it with financial support along with other private sponsors. A couple of years later the Ministry of Culture and Tbilisi Municipality joined the track.
Main aims of the festival are to introduce Georgian public with new works of high artistic value made in Georgia proper and worldwide, inform it about new trends in the world cinema and support development of Georgian cinema industry. Meetings of professionals in cinema community, workshops, master classes, retrospectives and other industrial events organized within the festival's frameworks give motivation to young cinematographers and encourage them to develop talent and artistic vision. We strive to turn the festival into a gathering place for filmmakers, producers, sales agents and distributors in South Caucasus. The festival has gained more significance throughout its history on worldwide scale. Number of the filmmakers willing to participate in the festival in any way is increasing year after year.
The most exciting part of the Tbilisi International Film Festival is the International competition in which 10 - 12 directorial debut or second full length feature films by European directors participate. Since the Festival takes place in December it gives us an advantage of selecting films that have already gained popularity at different festivals in other parts of the world.
There are two official prizes for the categories: Best Film (Gold Prometheus) and Best Director (Silver Prometheus). In addition to the golden and the silver Prometheus we also have the non-official prizes for instance the Parajanov Award, for Outstanding poetic vision. Different organizations are also encouraged to fund the event with various prizes.
Over the period of twelve years the festival has hosted more than 500 film directors, producers, actors, film experts, documentalists. During these years, TIFF was privileged to host honorable International filmmakers such as Bob Rafelson (USA), Vanessa Redgrave (UK), Leos Carax (France), Greta Scacchi (UK), Mike Leigh (UK), Krzysztof Zanussi (Poland), Mika Kaurismaki (Finland), Franco Nero (Italy), Bruno Dumont (France), Hugh Hudson (USA), Maryam D'Abo (USA), Jafar Panahi (Iran), Franc Roddam (UK), Sergey Solovyov (Rissia), Yesim Ustaoglu (Turkey), Helma Sanders-Brahms (Germany), Joe Wright (UK), Jim Stark (USA) and others; as well as Georgian filmmakers and actors working abroad: Otar Iosseliani, Mikheil Kobakhidze, Irakli Kvirikadze, Nana Jorjadze, Nino Kirtadze, Mikheil Kalatozishvili, Dito Tsintsadze, Merab Ninidze and others.