The Mayor of Gdynia Award

For the first time Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival in cooperation with Gdyńskie Centrum Filmowe is also organizing the Festival in Gdynia A jury, consisting of: Katarzyna Figura, Mikołaj Trzaska, Mirosław Przylipiak will give out The Mayor of Gdynia Award and 15 000 zloty to the winning film from the Millennium Competition.

 
JURY
Mikołaj Trzaska

Saxophonist, bass clarinetist and movie composer, grew out of “yass” – a socio-artistic movement that in the 1980s and 90s opposed what the participants saw as the rigidity of the Polish jazz environment. Together with Tymon Tymański and a group of other musicians free from any fixed doctrine they changed the image of Polish jazz music. Trzaska was the co-founder of the most important yass group – Miłość and the similarly creative Łoskot. The leader of the national improvised-music scene. After the yass period he recorded a few concentrated and quiet albums with the Oleś brothers. He also accompanied poets – Świetlicki and Andrukhovych, he created musical – literary projects with Andrzej Stasiuk. Today he is the leader of the international quartet INNER EAR, IRCHA – CLARINET QUARTET,  Danish-Polish trio Volumen. Above all he sees himself in the mode of radical contemporary free jazz. He travels around the world cooperating with personalities of world improvisation. He has recorded about fifty albums.

Mirosław Przylipiak

Film historian and theorist, translator, head of the Department of Film and Audiovisual Culture at the University of Gdańsk and lecturer at the Journalism Department of Ateneum-University in Gdańsk. Fellow of the Fulbright Program at Harvard University (1998–1999) and the Rockefeller Foundation (2002). Author of the following books: “Kino stylu zerowego. Z zagadnień estetyki filmu fabularnego” (“Zero-style cinema. Aesthetics of feature movies”, 1994), “Kino najnowsze” (“Modern cinema”, 1999, together with Jerzy Szyłak), “Poetyka kina dokumentalnego” (“Poetics of documentary movies”, 2000; Bolesław Michałek’s Award for the best cinema related book of the year), “Kino bezpośrednie 1960–1963” (“Direct cinema 1960–1963, vol. I, 2008), “Kino bezpośrednie 1963–1970. Czas autorów” (“Direct cinema 1963–1970. Time of the authors”, vol. II, 2014) and “Kino bezpośrednie 1963–1970. Między obserwacją a ideologią” (“Direct cinema 1963–1970. Between observation and ideology”, vol. III, 2014). Scholar of the history and theory of cinema, audiovisual communication and film reviews. He translated several books, mainly on psychology, cinema and audiovisual culture (e.g.: “Dustin Hoffman” by Ronald Bergan (1992), “The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart” and “A Philosophy of Mass Art” (2011) by Noël Carroll (2004). Founder of the Academic Educational Television at the University of Gdańsk. Author of several documentary movies, e.g. “Legenda o Janku Wiśniewskim” (“The legend of Janek Wiśniewski, 1994) and “Czy było kiedy tylu wspaniałych chłopców i dziewcząt” (“Have we ever had so many fantastic boys and girls”, 1997).

Katarzyna Figura

Cinema, television and theatre actress. Graduate of the Academy of Drama in Warsaw (1985), she continued her education at Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique in Paris. She earned recognition after starring in Radosław Piwowarski’s “Pociąg do Hollywood” (“Train to Hollywood”) as Mariola Wafelek (Marilyn) and in the movies directed by Juliusz Machulski (Ala in “Kingsajz” and Ryszarda Siarzewska in “Kiler”). She has been present in Polish cinema for 30 years now and starred in the movies of such directors as Piotr Szulkin, Filip Bajon, Roman Polański, Marek Koterski, Barbara Sass, Andrzej Kondratiuk, Ryszard Brylski and Jerzy Gruza. She appeared in some international productions as well (for instance in Robert Altman’s “The Player” and “Prêt-à-Porter”). Winner of numerous prestigious awards, in 2015 she received the “Polish Cinema Icon” award for her acting work at 4th Kołobrzeg Suspense Film Festival. In the period of 1985-88, she was appointed at the Modern Theatre in Warsaw and between 2006 and 2013 she acted at the Drama Theatre in Warsaw. Since 2013, she has been an actress of Wybrzeże Theatre in Gdańsk. She lectures at Gdynia Film School.