Tbilisi International Film Festival: Dates, Tickets & Venue (Tbilisi)

A week of cinema at the start of winter

December in Tbilisi is cold and dark early. For one week it is also the city’s film week. The Tbilisi International Film Festival takes place from December 1 to 7, 2026, and fills Amirani Cinema with a curated programme of international films and Georgian work.

It is one of Tbilisi’s longest-running cultural events. For a visitor, that means a festival with an established local audience rather than an industry-only crowd. You sit in a room with people who came to watch films.

Amirani Cinema and the week’s rhythm

Everything is centred on one venue. Amirani Cinema is the festival’s home for the full seven days, so you never cross the city between screenings. You can stay in one neighbourhood and walk to most of what you need.

A festival day usually works like this:

• Daytime: sightseeing, cafés and the old town, while the city is still light.
• Late afternoon: the first screenings, as darkness comes on.
• Evening: the busiest stretch, when locals finish work and fill the seats.

Seven days is long enough to treat it as a mini-season. Some attendees see one film a night all week. Others pack three or four into a weekend.

What’s on the screen

The programme has two strands: international selections and Georgian cinema. The second is where a visitor gets something they cannot easily see at home.

Georgia has a deep film tradition. It produced directors such as Tengiz Abuladze and Otar Iosseliani, and Sergei Parajanov made some of his best-known work there. New Georgian films carry that lineage, and a home-crowd premiere has its own atmosphere. Audiences cheer for names they recognise from the credits.

The organiser publishes the full line-up, the screening times and the ticket links on the festival’s official site. Each listing gives the film’s language and subtitles, which matters for visitors. English-speaking attendees usually read the subtitle line before anything else.

Getting a seat at Amirani

Ticketing follows the festival’s own system, and the official site is where the ticket links live. Most international visitors buy online, because Georgian-language box-office exchanges can be slow when the queue is long.

A few habits help the evening go smoothly:

• Payment: Card payment is standard across central Tbilisi, and contactless works almost everywhere. Some Georgian lari in your pocket still helps for taxis and small kiosks.
• Popular screenings: Georgian premieres and opening-night titles tend to draw the biggest crowds. Regulars usually reach the foyer well before the start time.
• Etiquette: Phones go dark and silent once the lights drop. Applause at the end is common, especially when a director or cast member is in the room.
• A greeting: “Gamarjoba” (hello) and “madloba” (thank you) go a long way with ushers and box-office staff.

Moving around a December city

Tbilisi is compact. The central districts and the Rustaveli Avenue area are easy to cover on foot between meals and films. After a late screening, most people take an app taxi: Bolt is widely used in the city, and you get a fixed fare without bargaining.

The metro is cheap and quick for longer hops, but late-night film-goers lean on taxis. Pack properly for the weather. Evenings in early December are often close to freezing, and the walk back from a cinema is colder than you expect.

Filling the hours between films

The daytime belongs to the city. Old Tbilisi, the Abanotubani sulphur baths and the Narikala Fortress above them make a full half-day. The cable car up to Narikala from Rike Park gives you the view across the Mtkvari River.

For dinner, the obvious move is Georgian: khinkali (soup dumplings), khachapuri (cheese bread) and a glass of qvevri-made wine. A long supper after the last film feels natural here, because Georgian meals rarely hurry. Winter also suits the baths, and a soak between screenings is a classic way to warm up.