On Saturday, May 21st, at the Award Ceremony in Warsaw Cinema Kinoteka, the winners of the 13th edition of MILLENNIUM DOCS AGAINST GRAVITY FF were announced.
International jury composed of Robert Gliński, Jean Peret and Anna Rudnitskaya gave the MILLENNIUM AWARD, the Grand Prix of the 13th Millennium Docs Against Gravity FF to the film Under the Sun (dir. Vitaliy Manskiy). ‘Under the Sun concerns North Korea, we got the point, but not only this dictatorship – this film concerns all of us in our different countries as far as we want to live as open minded and well informed citizen. Citizen able to dream our future, our utopias’, says the jury’s statement. A special mention was given to the film Sonita (dir. Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami).
This year the Festival introduced a new competition section called Fiction Non Fiction, for the best film on the border of two genres: fiction and documentary. The jurors Monika Braid, Piotr Stasik and Marcin Kot Bastkowski gave the award of EUR 4,000 funded by the Polish Film Institute to the film Olmo & The Seagull (dir. Petra Costa, Lei Glob). According to the jury’s verdict, it is ‘a film which crosses the boundaries of intimacy in a way which is beautiful, sincere, and emotional. A film whose theme is love, passion and devotion, a work that remains honest both towards its protagonists and the public, technically impeccable and artistically mature’. Special mention was given to the film White Rage (dir. Arto Halonen) which is ‘an electrifying journey to the sources of anger, and a terrifying warning of the consequences of rage.’
The jury composed of Tadeusz Sobolewski, Mirosław Chojecki and Draginja Nadaždin awarded the best film on human rights with Amnesty International Award. The winner is the film Those Who Jump (dir. Moritz Siebert, Estephan Wagner, Abou Bakar Sidibé) for ‘the excellent way it tells its story, and the idea of its realization “on the inside”, from the perspective of those who strive to reach the almost impossible’. The jury decided to give a special mention to the films A Good American (dir. Fredrich Moser) and They Will Have To Kill Us First (dir. Johann Schwartz).
The Chopin Nose Award and EUR 2,000 for the best documentary on music and art was given by the jury composed of Misia Furtak, Bogna Świątkowska and Stach Szabłowski to the film They Will Have To Kill Us First (dir. Johann Schwartz). A special mention was given to the film Thru You Princess (Presenting Princess Shaw) (dir. Ido Haar). The jury gave credit to both the story and the cinematic construction through which the story is reaching our awareness. ‘Ido Haar’s film is a contemporary fairy tale, the more interesting as it happened in reality’, the jurors concluded.
The GREEN WARSAW AWARD and EUR 3,000 sponsored by the City of Warsaw for the best film discussing ecology-related matters was given by the jury composed of Leszek Długosz, Joanna Erbel and Paweł Średziński to the film 10 Billion – What’s On Your Plate (dir. Valentin Thurn).‘We found insightful the attempt of facing, via film, solutions to the problem of scarcity of food, with focus on the analyses as to real validity and consumability, present-day facilities, and their effect on the environment’, the verdict said.
This year’s edition of the Festival introduced a new award of EUR 2,000 given by Zwierciadło magazine for the best psychology-related documentary. The winner is the film Natural Disorder (dir. Christian Sønderby Jepsen).
The award of Akademia Dokumentalna (Documentary Academy) was granted at Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival for the third time. This year though, a special Intergenerational Jury of Documentary Academy was composed of jurors of various ages: high schoolers who cooperate with Akademia Dokumentalna and the participants of the program ‘Archipelag pokoleń’ (Archipelago of Generations): Maciej Turski, , Łukasz Gawroński , Martyna Tomczyk, Klara Woźniak, Anna Starzewska, Joanna Peters, Alina Rudnicka. The award was given to the film My Love, Don’t Cross That River (dir. Jin Mo-young). ‘Mutual attention, care and empathy in unconditional, lasting and eternal love. Modest people. Modest life. Soulful presentation: with distance and great carefulness, discreetly, without pathos, shown through images, frames, music. It is a grand exercise in humanity’, said the jury in its verdict.
The Audience Award of the 13th Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival was given to the film Racing Extinction directed by Louie Psihoyos.
