Organisers of Millennium Docs Against Gravity (MDAG, Poland) have unveiled the dozen films that are selected for the Main Competition of the festival’s 23rd edition.
MDAG has been added to the list of Oscar®-qualifying festivals within the Best Documentary Feature Film category. Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Editing will be presented in the festival’s Main Competition and for the first time, a three-member FIPRESCI Jury will present an award.
Further awards will be presented in other cities by local juries: the Lower Silesia Grand Prix (Wrocław), the Silesian Audience Award (Katowice), the Mayor of Gdynia Award, the City of Poznań Freedom Award, and the Bydgoszcz Art.Doc Award.
In addition, the inaugural FIPRESCI Documentary Grand Prix will be awarded during the festival’s opening gala to the best film of the previous year, as selected by the international film critics affiliated to the organisation.
Comments Karol Piekarczyk, Artistic and Managing Director at MDAG, of this year’s Main Competition selection: “The notion of ‘searching’ is persistent in the films presented in the Main Competition in many forms. Whether it is a literal search for a missing son in Closure (dir: Michał Marczak) a search for home in A Fox Under a Pink Moon (dirs: Mehrdad Oskouei, Soraya Akhalaghi), or looking for a distinctive bird in Whispers in the Woods (dir: Vincent Munier), the exploration continues into the formal construction of these titles. With a unique immersive experience offered by Nuisance Bear (dirs. Gabriela Osio Vanden, Jack Weisman), carefully crafted shots in To Hold a Mountain (dirs: Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić), or an incredible blend of fiction and documentary in A Child of My Own (dir: Maite Alberdi).”
“The stories are also strongly set in landscapes where they take place – the town of Mariinka (dir: Pieter-Jan de Pue) is a cause of division which equally formed a brotherly bond. Iceland in Time and Water (dir: Sara Dosa) is magnificent in as much as showing us what is at stake for humanity, and Wax & Gold (dir: Ruth Beckermann) tells a story of a nation through the perspective of a hotel,” Piekarczyk continues.
“Searching is also what we do when we think about our relations with others. A son faces growing up with the aid of his father in Bugboy (dir: Lucas Paleocrassas), a director examines friendship and loss in Yo – Love is a Rebellious Bird (dirs: Anna Fitch, Banker White) and another director puts herself in front of the camera to understand the relationships which have forged her at her birthplace and ones which she encounters in her new home in Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest (dir: Viv Li).”
“At least the destination of the search for great cinema might be in sight, go and see these films!” Piekarczyk advises.
Guests of the festival this year include Andri Snær Magnason, author of the book “Time and Water” and one of the character in Sara Dosa’s film of the same title, Alan Berliner – director of Letter to the Editor; Iryna Dovhan – founder of SEMA Ukraine; Sam Green, director of The Oldest Person in the World; Maasja Ooms, director of My Word Against Mine; Monika Treut, director of Cooking Up Democracy; Irvine Welsh – author of the book “Trainspotting” and the main character of the film Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough, and John Wilson – director of How to Make a Film About Concrete and creator of the series How To with John Wilson.
The 23rd MDAG will take place from 8 to 17 May 2026 in cinemas in Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdynia, Poznań, Katowice, Łódź and Bydgoszcz, and from 19 May to 1 June online.
