In the early 1970s, the “Tehran International Film Festival” was held as the first film festival for short and feature 8 and 16-mm amateur movies. It was held around the country under the title of “Provincial Youth Cinema Film Festival”.

After the Islamic Revolution, the competition of amateur cinema was held at the “Fajr Film Festival” in 1982. Then it took the titles of “Youth Cinema Festival” and “International Youth Cinema Festival” which were focused on the young generation and the competition was in three fields: Films, Still Photography, and Screenplays.

In 2003, by the digital developments, some fundamental changes took place in the festival and the event became a specialized festival for short films, so the title “Tehran International Short Film Festival” was assigned to the event.

Nowadays, “Tehran International Film Festival is considered as one of the most important short film festivals in the west of Asia and one of the Academy Awards Qualifying film festivals.

The 39th edition of the Tehran International Film Festival will be held from the 19th to 24th of October and focuses on the Local Cinema concept and the genre variety in short films in general.
Short films with the limitation of a maximum of 30 minutes will compete in two international and national sections in four categories: Fiction, Documentary, Animation, and Experimental.