Mikheil Kobakhidze was born on April 5, 1939 in Tbilisi. In 1965, he graduated from Moscow State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) where he studied film making under Sergei Gerasimov and Tamara Makarova. Mikheil Kobakhidze made the diploma work, “Eight and a Half” (rvanakhevari) in Tbilisi. The film was destroyed by Soviet cinema officials as anti-Soviet even before sending it to Moscow. His short film, Wedding (qortsili) made in 1964 was awarded three prizes at the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen, these were the festival’s main prize, FIPRESCI and International Evangelical Cinema Centre’s prize. In 1969, after he made Musicians, Mikheil Kobakhidze was banned from making films independently by a decision of Alexander Romanov who was a chairperson of the USSR State Committee for Cinematography. In 2001, he made a short film, On the Road, in France.
Mikheil Kobakhidze died on October 13, 2019.