Millennium Docs Against Gravity, the world-class nonfiction film festival in Poland, has announced its main competition lineup, with the winner earning instant qualification for the Academy Awards.
A dozen features will compete for the Grand Prix – the Bank Millennium Award. In addition, the three-person jury – comprised of Oscar nominated filmmaker Talal Derki (Of Fathers and Sons), Oscar-shortlisted filmmaker Lea Glob (Apolonia, Apolonia), and Oscar-nominated producer Jessica Hargrave (Come See Me in the Good Light) — will award prizes for Best Cinematography and Best Editing in the Main Competition. A separate three-person FIPRESCI jury will award a critics prize in the Main Competition.
MDAG, the second-largest documentary film festival in Europe, runs May 8-17 across seven cities in Poland: Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdynia, Poznań, Katowice, Łódź and Bydgoszcz. It continues online from May 19-June 1.
“The twelve films that constitute this year’s Main Competition are the absolute highlight of what is happening currently in documentary cinema,” notes a release.
Among the films in Main Competition are Closure, directed by Michał Marczak, about a father’s desperate search for his missing teenage son; YO (Love Is a Rebellious Bird), directed by Anna Fitch and Banker White, about Fitch’s relationship with a fascinating émigré who was almost 50 years her senior; A Child of My Own, directed by two-time Oscar nominee Maite Alberdi, examines a young married woman who faced so much pressure to have a baby that she faked her own pregnancy; Time and Water, Oscar nominee Sara Dosa’s film about Iceland’s disappearing glaciers seen through the work of author Andri Snær Magnason.
Scroll for the full competition lineup.
“The notion of ‘searching’ is persistent in the films presented in the Main Competition in many forms,” observes Karol Piekarczyk, artistic and managing director at MDAG. “Whether it is a literal search for a missing son in Closure, a search for home in A Fox Under a Pink Moon or looking for a distinctive bird in Whispers in the Woods, the exploration continues into the formal construction of these titles. With a unique immersive experience offered by Nuisance Bear, carefully crafted shots in To Hold a Mountain, or an incredible blend of fiction and documentary in A Child of My Own.”
Karol Piekarczyk, MDAG’s artistic and managing director
MDAG
Piekarczyk continues, “The stories are also strongly set in landscapes where they take place – the town of Mariinka is both a cause of division which equally formed a brotherly bond, Iceland in Time and Water is magnificent inasmuch as showing us what is at stake for humanity, with Wax & Gold telling a story of a nation through the perspective of a hotel.
“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, a director examines friendship and loss in YO (Love is a Rebellious Bird) 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.”
Piekarczyk adds, “At least the destination of the search for great cinema might be in sight, go and see these films!”
MDAG
In addition to the Grand Prize – the Bank Millennium Award – local juries in the other cities hosting the festival will present awards: 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.
As Deadline reported, MDAG has also become home to a new, prestigious award: the FIPRESCI Documentary Grand Prix, selected from among the top documentaries of 2025. “Each year, it will be presented during the festival’s opening gala to the best film of the previous year, selected by international film critics.”
These are the films in Main Competition for this year’s Millennium Docs Against Gravity:
‘Closure’
MDAG
CLOSURE
In Michał Marczak’s Closure, Daniel sets off on an endless search. He did not hear his son Krzysiek leaving the house and heading to the bridge over the Vistula, where he was last seen. A camera captured him — and then he disappeared: either he jumped into the river or walked off the bridge. Since then, Daniel and his wife have lived suspended between hope and fear. Unable to wait for a breakthrough in the investigation, the father builds a boat equipped with cameras and drones to search the river himself. The search consumes him. The lonely hours spent on the boat become a chance for him to reckon with his life so far.
Director Anna Fitch in ‘YO (Love Is a Rebellious Bird)
MDAG
YO (LOVE IS A REBELLIOUS BIRD)
Anna is also trying to find meaning after the loss of a loved one. Following the death of her friend Yo, Anna obsessively recreates her house at a 1:3 scale for a marionette bearing the same name. When they met, Yo was 73 and Anna only 24. By constructing this miniature space, Anna creates a world where Yo’s stories can continue and their closeness can endure. YO (Love Is a Rebellious Bird) by Anna Fitch and Banker White reveals the power of artistic creation as a way to process and share grief and love.
‘A Fox Under a Pink Moon’
MDAG
A FOX UNDER A PINK MOON
Soraya has not found a home yet. For five years, 16-year-old Soraya Akhalaghi filmed key moments of her life on a mobile phone. During this time, she created striking drawings and sculptures while attempting to escape Iran, fleeing a violent husband to join her mother in Austria. Co-directed by her and Mehrdad Oskouei, A Fox Under A Pink Moon abandons a traditional documentary structure in favor of a form built on images, gestures, and symbols. It gives voice to Soraya as she embarks on a journey, fuelled by youthful courage, to discover her identity and find a new home.
‘Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest’
MDAG
TWO MOUNTAINS WEIGHTING DOWN MY CHEST
The film Two Mountains Weighting Down My Chest explores the theme of searching for one’s place in the world. Its director and protagonist, Viv Li, raised in Beijing in the 1990s and now living in Berlin, exists between two completely different worlds: the progressive scene of the German capital and the traditional life of her family in China. The titular “two mountains” serve as a metaphor for the weight of these opposing pressures: freedom, individualism, and artistic experimentation on one side, tradition, family, and loyalty to her roots on the other.
‘To Hold a Mountain’
MDAG
TO HOLD A MOUNTAIN
The protagonists of To Hold a Mountain, directed by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić, will not let anyone take their land away. Gara and her daughter Nada return every year to their family pastures. Living according to nature’s rhythm, they preserve the fragile continuity of tradition and memory. This order is disrupted when the government announces plans to establish a NATO-backed military training ground on the site. In the face of this threat, Gara emerges as a leader of the local community, becoming the public face of resistance against the militarization of the landscape. It is a story about belonging, female resilience, and perseverance in the face of contemporary forms of domination.
‘Nuisance Bear’
MDAG
NUISANCE BEAR
It is not only people who face displacement from the land they have always lived on. Churchill, Manitoba, affectionately known as the Polar Bear Capital of the World, provides the backdrop for a film depicting the tense coexistence of humans and bears. In Nuisance Bear, directed by Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman, the story unfolds through the eyes of an Inuit narrator, whose observations resist easy conclusions.
‘Bugboy’
MDAG
BUGBOY
The story of Yorgos shows just how much we could gain from a friendship with animals. This shy teenager with a vision impairment struggles to connect with others after his parents’ divorce. His bond with a cricket named Isabella becomes a catalyst for transformation and self-discovery. Lucas Paleocrassas’s Bugboy, which will have its international premiere at MDAG, blends realism with a metaphorical fairy-tale tone, creating visuals that are at once realistic and poetic.
‘Whispers in the Woods’
MDAG
WHISPERS IN THE WOODS
Vincent Munier, the acclaimed creator of The Velvet Queen, also reflects on the beauty of nature. In Whispers in the Woods, together with his father and his son, Vincent Munier explores life in the wild woods. The camera not only records images but, above all, “listens” to the forest as a living organism, where movement and sound form part of a complex web of life. Yet this is not only a story about the pleasure of connecting with nature, but also about family and the ways we can build strong bonds with those closest to us.
‘Wax & Gold’
MDAG
WAX & GOLD
For the director of Wax & Gold, a stay at the legendary Hilton hotel in Addis Abeba and Kapuściński’s The Emperor serve as a point of departure for a multilayered reflection on Ethiopia’s imperial past. Master of documentary cinema Ruth Beckermann intertwines personal experience with historical essay, revealing local perspectives and African contexts that shape contemporary understandings of the country.
‘Time and Water’
National Geographic
TIME AND WATER
The significance of the past is also explored by another film in the competition. As Icelandic glaciers melt and cherished grandparents pass away, Andri Snær Magnason transforms his rich archive – family photos, recordings, myths, and songs – into a kind of time capsule meant to preserve what slips away: memories, family, time, and water. Sara Dosa’s Time and Water. It is a poetic reflection on the relationship between intergenerational memory and the history embedded in ice.
‘Mariinka’
MDAG
MARIINKA
Pieter-Jan de Pue’s film Mariinka looks at the situation in Ukraine. The war turned everyone’s life on the frontline upside down. During the war, a promising female boxer becomes a medic, while another young woman works as a courier, smuggling goods across the front line. Like a Greek tragedy, two brothers stand on opposing sides of the conflict, while the youngest brother lives safely in a foster family in the United States.
A CHILD OF MY OWN
The competition line-up closes with a film about Alejandra. A powerful desire for motherhood and growing pressure from family members push her to take a desperate step – she begins pretending to be pregnant. An innocent lie quickly evolves into an increasingly complex charade that she must sustain for months before her husband and family. A Child Of My Own by Maite Alberdi is a moving portrait of a woman trapped in a web of her own lies, and at the same time a story about loneliness, social pressure, and the desperate need to fulfill the dream of motherhood.