In 1941 USSR Council of People’s Commissar issued a resolution, according to which, together with other archives Central Archive of Audio-Visual Documents should be established in USSR of Georgia. Audiovisual documents owned by Archival Affairs Management were scattered in different institutions and building (museums, libraries, studios etc) since then. It was necessary to gather and dispose them better. In the letter dated back with 1943 Avksenti Rafava, People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs was worried, because it was not realized yet. As a respond of the letter, addressees noted non-existence of the needed building as a reason.

In spite of this, the case moved on and in 1944 nominal existence of the Central Archive of Audio-Visual Documents was registered. Though because of the situation connected with World War the Second the archive has not been functioning since 1946.

At first only photo and film divisions were existing at the archive. Lately, in 1962 audio division was officially added to the archive. Nowadays, divisions of photo, film, audio documents, use and publication, as well as digital technologies are functioning at the Central Archive of Audio-Visual Documents.

More than 500 thousand photos, about 20 thousand audio records and nearly 35 thousand film documents are gathered at the archive. Process of supplement of the archive with the documents was coursed since the day of establishment till nowadays.