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The jubilee edition of MDAG attracted crowds of fans of documentary cinema to first, independent cinemas and then online! In total, as many as 144,483 people took part in both parts of the festival - in cinemas and online! This is over six thousand more people than in 2022.
Workshops, discussions and therapeutic consultations at the Safe Space, the VR section and exhibitions of posters and drawings in the festival cinema’s spaces, jubilee screenings of 20 films for the 20th anniversary of Millennium Docs Against Gravity, new sections and innovative accompanying events, such as dance workshops and drag shows - these are just some of the fresh ideas presented during the 20th edition of the festival. Together with a wide selection of films, those events attracted crowds to cinemas in eight festival cities - Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdynia, Poznań, Katowice, Łódź, Bydgoszcz and Lublin.
For the fourth consecutive year, the festival was held in a hybrid form, combining 10 days of the traditional cinema going experience (May 12-21) with the online selection - over 120 films were available on mdag.pl from May 23 to June 4. The online section featured virtual discussions and live events, including the celebration marking the beginning of the Pride Month which accompanied this year's section dedicated to the queer community - We're Here, We're Queer, which was the most popular online event of the year. TikTok, in cooperation with the festival, organized meetings with young creators on the Millennium Docs Against Gravity account.
Artur Liebhart, director and founder of the festival, expressed his gratitude to the titular patron of the event, Bank Millennium, which has been consistently supporting MDAG for 18 years, as well as to festival cinemas, spectators, media partners and volunteers, thanks to whom such a great festival could take place. The main institutions co-financing the festival included: the City of Warsaw, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Polish Film Institute, the European Union’s Creative Europe as well as Visa and Canal+ online.
Mateusz Góra, head of communications and audience development department, highlighted the diversity of this year's festival program: “In total, during the 20th MDAG, we presented almost 190 of the best documentary films from around the world, both short and feature-length. In addition, dozens of additional events took place - both in cinemas and online. Thanks to the diversity of our program and events, we manage to effectively reach new groups and invite them to participate in the festival. Such was the case this year with activities in the Safe Space, which we could start thanks to the support of the Wellbee brand. Therapeutic consultations as well as workshops and discussions attracted a younger audience, giving them the opportunity to safely and substantively talk about sexuality and mental health. In turn, the immensely popular VR experience exhibition served as a look into the future of cinema and audiovisual arts. We are very pleased that the audience keeps returning to independent cinemas in such large numbers, supporting them after the pandemic. The audience attendance during the cinema part of the festival, which is similar to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, is a sign that we still want to experience films with each other in the cinema hall.”
Combining cinema and online - recipe for accessibility
The cinema part of the festival, which took place in eight cities, attracted 89,223 people. In turn, during the online part 32,506 e-tickets were sold. However, assuming most people don't watch movies alone, the audience number is likely higher. Festivals around the world use a multiplier of 1.7. Therefore, we can presume that a total of 55,260 people participated in the online part. Adding those numbers, we conclude that 144,483 spectators took part in the 20th edition of the festival. The online part gives the opportunity to participate in the festival also to cinema lovers from outside the festival cities and to people with disabilities or mobility issues, for whom it might be difficult to reach the cinema.
During the 20th MDAG, 22 film awards were presented, including the Grand Prix - Bank Millennium Award for the film "Apolonia, Apolonia" by Lea Glob - a story about an artist trying to make it in the world of art, which was shot over the span of 13 years. In other festival cities, local awards were given in the Main Competition: the Grand Prix of Lower Silesia in Wrocław, the Mayor of Gdynia Award, the City Of Poznań Freedom Award, the Audience Award of the Silesian Voivodeship in Katowice and the Bydgoszcz Art.Doc Award.
The most popular films of the festival will be distributed by Against Gravity and released in theaters - "All The Beauty and The Bloodshed" (16th of June), "After Work" (4th of August), “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” (10th of November) and "Whale Nation" in December.
We already know the dates of the next, 21st edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity - the cinema part will take place from 10th till 19th of May, while the online part will last from 21st of May 21 till 3rd of June, 2024.
