The official organizer of BIAFF is “Batumi House of Art Argani”. The official supporter of Batumi Film Festival in 2008 is Batumi State Municipality.
BIAFF is annual event and is held in second half of September. Festival is focusing on art-house films.
President of festival is Lana Ghoghoberidze, the director of BIAFF - Giorgi Gogiberidze, program director – Christopher Kamyshev (Chicago International Documentary Film Festival director), curator of retrospectives and non-competition screenings is Andrzjei Slowicki, and organization group consisting of 20 person.
BIAFF 2006 - First Batumi International Film Festival was held during 15-21 November. There was presented films from 23 countries (West and East Europe, Asia, America etc.). The festival was supported by Ministry of Culture and Education of Adjara AR, City municipality and private sponsors.
Head of jury of BIAFF 2006 was Mr. Hans-Joachim Schlegel (Germany).
At BIAFF 2006 during the festival was held the retrospective of famous Georgian Film director – Mikheil Kalatozishvili. The BIAFF 2006 was highlighted in Ukrainian TV channel “Culture” and US cinema magazine “Variety”.
BIAFF 2007 - Took place on 5-12 September. At BIAFF 2007 was represented the films from 19 countries. The film festival was opened by well known Russian film “Ostrov” (Island) directed by Pavel Lungin.
Within the film festival program was arranged the retrospective of famous Polish film director Mr. Andrej Wajda and the series of seminar "Andrzej Wajda - Close View". It was supported by the Institute of Adam Mitskevich and Polish embassy. There was a delegation of Polish cinema film makers/actors including the honorary guest of Mr. Krzysztof Zanussi.
The Head of Jury was Director of Chicago Film Festival – Mr. Christopher Camiszew.
Program of Film Festival:
- Competition films – documentary and feature films sections
- “Silk Road Section” – Georgia, Caucasus, Iran, Turkey, Middle Asia
- Meet the Jury – films of members of jury
- Non competitive film section – short films and animation
- Retrospectives
BIAFF nominations:
- Grand Prix
- Best feature film
- Best documentary film
- Best actor
- Best actress
- Jury’s special prize
Additional prizes:
- Lifetime achievement award - Georgian cinematographer
- Lifetime achievement award - Foreign cinematographer
