During the opening ceremony, the artistic director of the festival, Karol Piekarczyk emphasized the importance of this decision: This year, a month before the festival, we were invited to join a special group of festivals that are members of the European Film Academy. As a result, films shown and awarded at our festival have an incredible opportunity to compete for the European Film Awards. What is more, Millennium Docs Against Gravity can recommend films to be nominated for these awards.

We are very pleased with this distinction, as it honours the work of many people who have contributed to the growth and development of the festival in recent years. It is a sign of appreciation for their work expressed by the international film industry. We feel all the more honoured given that the EFA festival list changes very rarely. It makes us very happy to know that, thanks to our festival, filmmakers can compete for one of the most important awards in the film industry.

Everyone is welcome at the festival!

We wish to invite viewers with vision and hearing impairments to the screenings of selected films presented during the 19th Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival.

For the fourth time, thanks to the support of Millennium Bank, a number of films will be screened during the 19th Millennium Docs Against Gravity with audio description and subtitles. Together with the Culture Without Barriers Foundation, we have selected three titles that perfectly represent the diversity of this year's programme. Screenings of films with audio description will be held at prime time, so that they can be attended by as many viewers as possible. We want to give everyone the opportunity to avail themselves of this opportunity and participate in the festival. This year, the audio-description shows will take place in three cities, and then online, giving access to films to viewers throughout Poland.

– We have continued the audio description project with people with disabilities in mind – says Iwona Jarzębska, director of the Public Relations Department of the Millennium Bank. – It is the fourth edition of the festival during which selected films will be screened with subtitles for the hearing-impaired and with verbal description of the visual content provided through headphones. As a result, visually-impaired viewers, seniors, people with dyslexia and intellectual disabilities can fully participate in the festival and watch latest documentaries from throughout the world at cinemas or, during the online edition of the festival, also at home.

Millennium Bank has been a sponsor of the Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival since 2006. In 2016, the Bank took over the patronage of the event.

Screenings of films with audio description and subtitles for hearing-impaired viewers will take place in Warsaw, Gdynia and Wroclaw. In Warsaw, three films will be shown in this manner: “A House Made of Splinters” directed by Simon Lereng Wilmont – a touching story about the staff and the charges of a temporary orphanage in eastern Ukraine; “McCurry: The Pursuit of Color” directed by Denis Delestrac – the first full-length portrait of Steve McCurry, the author of photographs documenting the most important events of the 20th and the 21st century, including the iconic photos of a green-eyed Afghan girl, as well as “The River” directed by Liz Garbus – a spectacular depiction of rivers and their role in the modern world, narrated by Willem Dafoe and featuring a sound-track that includes, among others, music by Radiohead.