MDAG 26

Polish filmmaker Łukasz Kowalski is developing Children of the Black Garden, a new feature documentary rooted in the toxic legacy of Silesia’s industrial past, and the hidden story of a doctor who exposed mass lead poisoning among children in the 1970s. Produced by Anna Mazerant and Kowalski himself through 4.30 Studio, the project is among the titles being presented at Millennium Docs Against Gravity’s Progress Pitching Session on May 8.

Polish filmmaker Maciej Bochniak is developing The Lawyer, a new feature documentary following the extraordinary case of Brian Mwenda, a Kenyan man who reportedly passed himself off as a lawyer, built a reputation in Nairobi’s legal circles and became a national controversy after his real credentials were called into question. “I was drawn to Brian’s story because, in a certain way, I had lived it myself — due to my own diagnosed impostor syndrome,” says Bochniak.

Polish helmers Sylwia Witowska and Piotr Wacowski are in mid-production on After Roll Call. Legio Patria Nostra, a feature documentary set inside a French Foreign Legion veterans’ home in Puyloubier, in the south of France. “This is not a film about war,” the filmmakers underline. “It is about what happens to a person when the system that shaped them no longer exists.”

In No Mother’s Land, pitching May 8 in Warsaw, director Wiktoria Davis Szymańska recounts her gripping decade-long ordeal to protect her daughter, all the time trapped in a Kafkaesque legal nightmare. For Szymańska, the pitch also marks a decisive step in bringing to the screen a story she began filming long before it could be safely told. BDE reports.

At Millennium Docs Against Gravity (MDAG, May 8-17), pitching does not only mean introducing projects in development. With Pole Position, the Warsaw-based festival has created a format designed for completed Polish documentaries already selected for its programme, giving producers the opportunity to present the completed works to international festival programmers, sales agents, distributors and broadcasters. BDE reports.

The Polish feature documentary Closure tells the most desperate of personal stories, that of a dad searching for his lost son. “This film became one of the most challenging I’ve made on every level, because it required holding two impulses at once,” director Michał Marczak tells BDE. “On the one hand, I wanted to keep the crew minimal and intimate. On the other hand, I wanted the film to carry an epic scope, to convey emotion through images and atmosphere, through showing rather than telling.”

“I think there is no imperative for documentary films to change the world. But you can’t deny the fact that they do have an impact on our reality,” MDAG Artistic Director Karol Piekarczyk tells BDE, as he reflects on the global crises that have formed a grim backdrop to all our lives over the past years. The 23rd Millennium Docs Against Gravity docfest opens May 7 across seven Polish cities - Warsaw, Wroclaw, Gdynia, Poznan, Katowice, Lodz, Bydgoszcz - running 8 to 17 May 2026 in cinemas, before going online 19 May to 1 June.

This year, MDAG Polish Competition will feature ten “outstanding” films competing for three awards – the Best Polish Film Award, the Best Production Award from Smakjam Studio, and the Polish Arthouse Cinemas Association Award. “These are titles awarded at the most important international festivals [and] many of them will have their world premieres,” write organisers. All will celebrate their Polish premieres. The 23rd edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity runs May 8 to 17 within 7 Polish cities, and online from May 19 to June 1.

MDAG Industry will take place from 7 to 11 May in Warsaw’s State Ethnographic Museum. ”From working with personal and family archives, through giving voice to communities living in the shadow of political change, to practical accessibility tools – this year, the Industry programme brings together filmmakers, producers and institutions who treat inclusivity not as an add-on, but as a foundation of contemporary documentary cinema,” organisers write. ”The guiding theme of this year’s programme is the voices that have been kept on the margins for far too long.”

The award will go to one of 12 feature documentaries about luminaries working within the arts – ranging from film, music, and theatre to literature and the avant-garde. Festival partner The National Fryderyk Chopin Institute funds the €2000 prize. The 23rd MDAG will take place from May 8-17, 2026 in cinemas across seven Polish cities (Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdynia, Poznań, Katowice, Łódź, and Bydgoszcz), and online from May 19 to June 1.