The Festival features films from all over the world. There have been short films, feature films, documentaries, animations and experimental films from Austria, China, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. TIFF also gives young student film makers an opportunity to participate and hence develop their professional career within the profession. Their projects enjoy the support of the Albanian National Film Festival, which was established eleven years ago to administer the public funds used in Albanian film production.

Most of the film makers that take part in the national competition are almost unknown to foreign visitors of the festival. They are mostly students presenting their film debuts coming from one of the new Albanian film schools, like the Marubi Film and Multimedia School founded by the well-known director Kujtim Çashku, or the Television Directing Department in the Public Arts Academy.

Albania is a country in transition that can be explored by non-Albanians through “cultural tourism”. Even if Tirana still cannot compete with other cultural metropolises, it does attract foreign attention through its cultural festivals, which point to the development of Albania in the last 18 years. Three years ago, the award-winning British film-maker Ken Loach was a guest of the festival, and films by Sergei Parajanov, John Cassavetes and Goran Paskaljevic have been shown. TIFF has also presented films by Lina Wertmüller and Peter Sellers that had been in the Albanian Film Archives for over forty years.

In the past six years, the festival has been able to establish itself as an important player in Albanian cultural policy. The festival discusses new concepts for Albania’s urgent problems, especially with regard to the new generation of film makers who are not free to fully experience the world due to visa restrictions.

In recent years, the festival has been threatened twice by closure due to lack of financial support. Hundreds of artists have protested against the threat “to shut this window to the world that offers a bit of hope and expectation, and that connects Albania with the rest of the world, at a time when it has a very limited number of movie theatres and cinematographic activities”. The artists call for the support of the Government. For them, TIFF remains a cultural effort that cannot be abandoned.