Each film is a unique story born in a specific place and time. Below you will find interesting texts and podcasts to help you understand movies better - perfect for reading or listening to before and after the screening!
It was a record-breaking year for Millennium Docs Against Gravity! The 22nd edition of the festival attracted an impressive 181,542 attendees—the highest number in MDAG's history and more than 16,000 more than in 2024 (165,255 attendees).
One on Kredytowa street in Warsaw, Poland bears a sign that reads, “The door is heavy, but it’s worth the effort.”
his means that starting Friday, regular screenings will begin in seven cities—Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdynia, Katowice, Poznań, Bydgoszcz, and Łódź—as part of the second largest documentary film festival in Europe.
This year’s International Short Film Competition also features four Polish productions, introduced in the studio by the competition programmer, Mateusz Góra: “Can You Hear Me?
Wojciech Diduszko, Director of the MDAG Polish Competition, presents the ten films in this year’s lineup!
The selection of films competing for this year's Doc Alliance Award has been revealed
In the frame of its celebration of the 100-year anniversary, The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) announces a new collaboration with the renowned Millennium Docs Against Gravity (MDAG).
Every May, Millennium Docs Against Gravity becomes an unmissable event that draws leading figures of documentary cinema to Warsaw and other festival cities. Among them are Oscar® nominees and winners, representatives of the world’s most important festivals, television networks, streaming platforms, and key decision makers who take part in pitch sessions and MDAG Industry events. You’ll meet them in just a few days at the second-largest documentary film festival in Europe! Here’s a glimpse at the international stars of MDAG.
Starting today, the complete screening schedule for all seven festival cities is available at mdag.pl. Online pre-sale of tickets has also begun via mdag.pl, on cinema websites, and at box offices in participating cinemas.
This year’s juries have a particularly difficult task — they must choose the winners from among emotionally moving and artistically accomplished films. In total, 20 awards will be given across 16 competitions in all seven festival cities.
The neighboring twos in the 22nd edition of MDAG demand a double celebration – with two official opening nights!
The Artistic Director of MDAG, Karol Piekarczyk, traditionally shares his recommendations and introduces the 12 films in the Main Competition: “This selection represents the very best of documentary cinema—and cinema as a whole.”
To support emerging talents, the Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival will once again present the First Appearance Award. A new addition to this year’s festival program is the Contrasting American section, which explores what has become of the American dream in recent years.
An inseparable part of the festival is its colorful and diverse program of accompanying events, featuring moving concerts, DJ sets, parties, and screenings with live music. What will MDAG sound like this year? The inspiration for all the musical events at the festival comes, of course, from the films featured in the program.
At the 22nd Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival, WWF Poland—longtime partner of the festival—will present a special award on the occasion of its 25th anniversary in Poland. The award will be granted to the Indigenous people of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, whose heroic defense of their land against the incursion of fossil fuel corporations and the Canadian government is portrayed in the film Yintah.
Two new sections in the program of the 22nd edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity – Political Studies and Investigative Journalism – are united by the theme of power and the methods used to exercise it. They offer insight into the mechanisms politicians use to manipulate the public, as well as the tools used by independent media to uncover these strategies and help us live more consciously.
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.
“I risked my life every day” - these words recur in his notes like an incantation. A photograph is a state of permanent danger. Every moment of reality captured by Cole is a moment when the world freezes. The photographer collects evidence. The problem is that a painful shadow lingers behind him every step of the way. Wherever Cole goes, the shadow follows him.
The XR Exhibition at the Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival takes us on a fascinating journey along the borderline between human consciousness and technology. Five exceptional works reveal different ways of expanding our perception.
We are horrified to learn about the lynching of Hamdan Ballal, the co-director of No Other Land, by Israeli settlers. His film won our festival last year and was awarded the Oscar® for Best Feature Documentary.
Painting, photography, music, cinema – artists from all these fields are the protagonists of the films competing for the Chopin’s Nose award this year. Ten exceptional stories about figures such as Genesis P-Orridge, Jacek “Budyń” Szymkiewicz, Martin Parr, Amanda Lear, Charlie Chaplin, Hayao Miyazaki, and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham await the audience at the 22nd MDAG.
It was another excellent year for Polish documentary cinema, reflected both in the number of awards won by Polish filmmakers at the world’s most important festivals and in the outstanding quality of the films themselves. This year, the Polish Competition at MDAG will feature ten exceptional films competing for three awards: Best Polish Film, Best Production (awarded by Smakjam Studio), and the Award of the Association of Arthouse Cinemas.
Seven cities, over 165,000 viewers in 2024, and hundreds of volunteers across the country—all these people, institutions, and places make up the MDAG festival family.
As every year, the Millennium Docs Against Gravity program will feature films that have won the acclaim of critics and audiences at one of the world's largest film festivals – Berlinale. Among them is the festival’s documentary winner, the gripping "Holding Liat", which received the Berlinale Documentary Award! The Berlin festival also included some Polish highlights! "Letters From Wolf Street" is an intimate portrayal of Poland through the eyes of a director from India who has been living in the country for ten years. Meanwhile, "Bedrock", directed by Kinga Michalska, takes viewers on a powerful journey through sites of destruction. Both films will have their Polish premieres during the 22nd edition of MDAG!
During the 22nd edition of the Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival, audiences can once again enjoy a selection of beloved short films. Presented in curated blocks, productions from around the world—each up to 45 minutes long—will compete in the Short Film Competition during the cinema part of the festival.
During the 22nd edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity, the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw will host the opening of the photography exhibition "Ernest Cole: A Lens in Exile’, in collaboration with Autograph, London and Magnum Photos. The exhibition is curated by Mark Sealy. The exceptional works of this renowned photographer, which have traveled worldwide, will be presented to the Polish audience for the first time—two days before the festival begins—on Wednesday, May 7, 2025. The exhibition will remain at the National Ethnographic Museum until the end of August.
The 22nd edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity will be an opportunity to meet two legends of documentary cinema—Mads Brügger and Lauren Greenfield.
We invite you to present your projects at the pitching session organized duringMDAG Industry at the 22nd edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity.Our guests will include producers, festival programmers, and specialists from the XR/VR industry. The Industry Section is organized in cooperation with CANAL+ Polska.
The Sundance Festival, the largest celebration of independent cinema, has begun. Its program features numerous documentaries that will have their Polish premieres during the 22nd Millennium Docs Against Gravity. These are stories about politics, self-discovery, care for the future, and the pursuit of justice. Polish audiences will be able to see them from May 9 to 18 in cinemas across seven Polish cities, and later online from May 20 to June 2 at mdag.pl.
All films nominated for the Oscar® in the Best Feature Documentary category had their Polish (some of them also international and European) premieres during the 21st edition of MDAG in 2024. Among the nominees is also the big MDAG winner, No Other Land (directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor).
