As many as five pitchings, creators and representatives of festivals, distributors, TV stations, and streaming platforms from all over the world. MDAG Industry has been rapidly growing over the past few years, becoming a birthplace for ambitious documentary films. From over 200 submissions, the projects to be presented to the international jury during three of the pitchings have already been selected.
The event will take place from May 8 to 12 at the State Ethnographic Museum as part of the 22nd edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity.
PROGRESS PITCHING SESSION
A total of 10 projects have been selected for the Progress Pitching Session — eight were chosen by the festival’s selectors, while two received MDAG awards in Prague and Copenhagen. Among them are new films by Polish filmmakers such as Paweł Ziemilski, Sylwia Rosiak, and Michał Marczak, as well as international projects like the Romanian “Mother Ship” by Ana Vijdea and the Ukrainian-German co-production “Youth” by Daria Zhuravel.
BECOMING CHRISTINE GRANVILLE, dir. Sylwia Rosak, prod. Justyna Kluczewska & Maciek Ostatek
CLOSURE, dir. Michał Marczak, prod. Monika Braid
BEAVERS, dir. Paweł Hejbudzk, prod. Natalia Grzegorzek
HOW TO BURY A HOLE, dir. Piotr Jasiński, prod. Małgorzata Prociak, Radim Procházka, Michael Kalb
LESSONS FROM "CHEMISTRY", dir. Magda Grudniewska, prod. Karol Zagórski & Pauline Tran van Lieu
LOVE LETTERS, dir. Paweł Ziemilski, prod. MX35 (Paweł Ziemilski, Mateusz Wajda, Alicja Gancarz)
MOTHER SHIP, dir. Ana Vijdea, prod. Ana Gheorghe, Ana Vijdea
YOUTH, dir. Daria Zhuravel, prod. Anastasiia Zakhilko
Two projects were selected from those presented at East Doc Forum and CPH:FORUM as part of the CHANGE pitching session, where this year Millennium Docs Against Gravity awarded the following projects:
ALWAYS FAR AWAY, directed by Roman Ďuriš, prod. Richard Šimeček – presented at East Doc Forum
MISSING IN ACTION, directed by Marharyta Melnychuk & Kateryna Holovko, prod. Aliona Kachkan – presented at CPH:FORUM - Change
The pitching prizes are funded by the event partners:
CANAL+ Polska – €3,000
Polish Filmmakers Association (Stowarzyszenie Filmowców Polskich) – 10,000 PLN
SMAKJAM – Color correction service worth 15,000 PLN
SOUNDMIND – Sound post-production service worth 10,000 PLN
This year, the prize pool has been expanded to include the VISIONI DAL MONDO Award – an accreditation and participation in the Visioni dal Mondo pitching session in Milan.
Qualified participants will also receive training sessions with renowned industry experts, who will help them refine their presentations to make them more appealing to international decision-makers.
Tutors:
Kim Christiansen – Executive producer. He specializes in documentary films and co-productions at DR Sales. With over 20 years of experience in the documentary film industry (sales and acquisition of rights, commissioning, co-production), he has also served as Sales Director at TV 2 WORLD and Industry Director at CPH:DOX (in 2012 and 2013).
Martijn te Pas – Film programmer & Festival advisor. Martijn te Pas studied psychology, English literature, and film and television studies at the University of Amsterdam. From 2000 to 2019, he was part of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) as a senior programmer. He also served as an advisor for the IDFA Bertha Fund and IDFA Forum.
SHORT PITCH PROGRAM
For the third time, in collaboration with the Czech Institute of Documentary Film, we are organizing the Short Pitch Program – a pitching session for five short documentary films from the Central and Eastern European region.
List of selected projects:
AMMA, DO GIRAFFES CRY?, dir. Kartikeya Saxena, prod. Ondřej Šejnoha, Kartikeya Saxena (Czech Republic)
EYELASHES AND SAND CRYSTALS, dir. Daryna Mamaisur, prod. Olha Tuharinova (Ukraine)
INSIDE, dir. Dorota Vinová, prod. Barbara Janišová Feglová, Roman Pivovarník (HITCHHIKER Cinema) (Slovakia)
KONTREWERS, dir. Zuzanna Banazińska, prod. Aleksandra Aleksander (Poland)
RECIPES FOR LIFE, dir. Péter Becz, prod. Julianna Ugrin (Hungary)
The tutor and moderator of the pitching session will be Emilia Mazik.:
Emilia Mazik has a degree in Cultural Management and in Philosophy from Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Since 2014 she has worked for Short Waves Festival, an international short film festival from Poznań, Poland, from 2019 as a festival director. In 2020 she joined the editorial team of Talking Shorts, an online film magazine dedicated to short films. In 2021, as a representative of European Short Film Network, she was among the founders of This Is Short platform.
XTENDED PITCH
For the first time at MDAG Industry, we will present XR (extended reality), AR (augmented reality), and VR (virtual reality) projects at various stages of production. The selected projects, which explore new forms of storytelling, will be prepared for presentation by experienced tutors: Georgy Molodtsov and Paul Tyler.
This pitching session is open to creators, producers, curators, distributors, and anyone interested in the future of immersive storytelling formats. It is a great opportunity to discover projects that could change the way we perceive art, education, and documentary filmmaking.
Projects presented at Xtended Pitch:
HAŁAS, directed by Krzysztof Grudziński
MIĘDZY NOCĄ A NOCĄ, directed by Miłosz Hermanowicz
MOTHER NATURE, directed by Louise Latter
RITUAL, directed by Pola Komarowa
On April 9th, we will publish the full program of Industry events.
MDAG Industry is organized in collaboration with CANAL+ Polska.
The section is co-financed by the Polish Film Institute.
The event is developing thanks to the MEDIA component of Creative Europe.
The event has a wide range of partners, including the State Ethnographic Museum, Polish Filmmakers Association, SMAKJAM, SoundMind, Polish Producers Alliance, the Institute of Documentary Film, Andrzej Wajda Centre For Film Culture, Papaya Films, Visioni dal Mondo, Mazovia Warsaw Film Commission, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Doc Alliance, CPH:DOX, EAVE, IMS, Coconaut, and Toyota Radość.
MDAG Industry. A Space for the Development of the Documentary Film Industry
MDAG Industry is a unique film industry event that connects Polish filmmakers with international festival representatives, distributors, producers, sales agents, and renowned stars of contemporary cinema. We started in 2021 with a single event, and since 2022 we have been developing an extensive industry program under the MDAG Industry banner. The MDAG Industry program responds to the current needs of the audiovisual market, keeping up with trends, anticipating changes, and embracing innovation.
MDAG Industry Guests Include:
Salma Abdalla (Österreichisches Filminstitut), Inka Achte (Helsinki Festival), Fatih Abay (European Film Academy), Bassam Alasad (Szef Amman Industry Days), Elisabeth Aalmo (Norwegian Film Institute), Heidi Kim Andersen (Danish Film Institute), Kim Christiansen (DR Sales), Matt Carey (Deadline), Paola Casella (FIPRESCI Vice President), Ahmed Shawky (FIPRESCI President), Nick Cunningham (Business Doc Europe), Linda Curtin (Immersive Ireland), Sigrid Dyekjær (Real Lava), Tijana Djukic (Stranger Films Sales), Veronika Dvorackova (Institute of Documentary Film), Murtada Elfadl (Variety), Mark Edwards (Freelance / Consultations), Aveline Geaverts (Nxt Museum), Alex Gibney (Jigsaw Productions), Ingvil Giske (Medieoperatørene), Theodore Grouya (AmDocs), Lauren Greenfield (Institute Pictures), Georg Gruber (Magnet Film), Jasper Hokken (IDFA), Mette Hoffman Meyer (THE WHY FOUNDATION), Tim Horsburgh (National Geographic), Eric Hynes (Jacob Burns Film Center), Anas Khelawy (Al Jazeera), Yulia Kovalenko (DocuDays), Lucie Kon (BBC Storyville), Yorgos Krassakopoulos (Thessaloniki Documentary Festival), Dorota Lech (Toronto International Film Festival), Victoria Leschenko (Doc Leipzig), Emilia Mazik (Glasgow Short Film Festival, Leiden Shorts), Georgy Molodtsov (Freelance / Consultations), Teresa Morales (Punto de Vista), Jos Motshagen (IDFA Bertha Fund), David Keating (Freelance / Consultations), Andy Norton (Raina Sales), Veton Nurkollari (DocuFest), Anne Rethfeldt (DAE), Jan Rofekamp (Freelance / Consultations), Lea Maria Strandbæk Sørensen (Nordisk Panorama), Daniela Santrochova (CZECH TELEVISION), Luisa Schwamborn (New Docs), Signe Skov Thomsen (Hansen & Pedersen), Aleksandra Sirakova (Lightdox), Martijn Te Pas (Europadoc / Consultations), Manon Blot (Forum Des Images - Cannes), Marina Thome (DocLisboa), Paul Tyler (Freelance / Consultations), Ania Trzebiatowska (Sundance), Henrik Underbjerg (Mediasupport / Change), Jasmina Vignjevic (Syndicado), Louis Crisan (Mediawan), Mathieu Janssen (Go Short), Massimo Benvegnù (Biografilm Festival), Oksana Lapshuk Dykovska (Stranger Films Sales), Sara Yamashita Rüster (Swedish Film Institute), Signe Zeilich-Jensen (Freelance / Consultations) oraz Young Woo Kim (Red Sea FF / Busan FF).
The 22nd MDAG will take place from May 9 to 18, 2025, in cinemas in Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdynia, Poznań, Katowice, Bydgoszcz, and Łódź, and from May 20 to June 2 online at mdag.pl! The festival’s title sponsor is Bank Millennium. (https://www.bankmillennium.pl/).
