Cineuropa sat down to talk to Artur Liebhart, the head of Millennium Docs Against Gravity Festival. It’s a leading event of its kind in Poland, and second – after IDFA – largest documentary film festival in Europe, when it comes to number of admissions. The 22nd edition will take place onsite in Warsaw and 7 other Polish cities (Gdynia, Wrocław, Łódź, Bydgoszcz, Poznań and Katowice) from 9 to 18 May, while the online part will roll out from 20 May to 2 June.

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Cineuropa: We are talking in the wake of the 22nd edition of the festival. What do you think is the most crucial thing that the documentary cinema wants to say this year?
Artur Liebhart: I think we encapsuled that a little in this year’s festival motto – “The Whole World Between Us”. “Between Us” meaning between those who make film and those who watch them, and also between those who watch – the audience. Our goal, and not a clandestine one, although maybe not everyone pays attention to things like this, is to build a community around documentary cinema. A community of sensitive hearts and sensitive minds. This is what we were able to capture in our motto. What we did well this year, I think, is showing very courageous protagonists. Courageous personalities, without whom there is no chance of any kind of change. They can also be a role models for these who think that they can’t do anything. For the opening of the festival we offer Coexistence, My Ass! [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], about a wonderful person, Noam Shuster Eliassi. All her life she goes against these who tell her what to do. She thinks that there is one humanity and no matter which government says what she knows her stuff. In a wonderful, interesting way she can even bring together two communities through a sense of humour. So, her stand-up, her way of showing things that are the same and those that are different, and funny characteristics of the two nations gained big popularity in the Middle East. Then she finds herself in a critical moment on October 9th and we see what happens next. We’re very glad that Noam and the director, Amber Fares, will be coming to the opening and Noam will also present her stand-up routine to the Warsaw audience. So, there is a lot to look forward to, right?

Exactly. What else can we expect?
Apart from the film programme, that we work on all year long, I’m very glad that we’re expanding our industry section. We will have plenty of wonderful guests from around the globe, who will meet in Warsaw, and I hope that these meetings will prove fruitful for both them and for the Polish film industry. Besides the usual elements of the industry such as pitching, we will have unusual ones like an anti-masterclass with Mark Cousins. There will be, I think a first in Poland, a masterclass about sound – with Nicolas Becker, an Oscar winner for Sound of Metal. He also co-created the sound for the film Victor, that had a world premiere in Toronto. Sound is very important in this film, because the eponymous Victor is deaf. He lives with him mother in Kharkov. He speaks Russian, because this is how he was raised, but he was also raised a bit in a Samurai philosophy. His late father was a fan of Samurai films. So, we also see a deaf Samurai, who wants to heal his nation, although he doesn’t speak their language. This film shows a lot of interesting dimensions of what is happening in the East, and what he in Poland is not aware of, not to mention an audience in the West.

Speaking of the audience – Millenium Docs Against Gravity – is now the second largest documentary film festival in Europe, when it comes to a number of admissions. You organize parallel editions in a few cities, since last year MDAG has been an Oscar qualifying festival. What’s next for you?
Above all we want to do more and more for the film industry. We want to become an ultimate lobbyist for a Polish documentary industry – both domestically and internationally. These actions will include activities for increasing production budgets and using documentary film as an educational tool. We want to use it to bring back different kind of values to older and younger heads.

Speaking of “younger heads” – one of the ongoing conversations in the industry is how to attract young audience to cinemas. MDAG doesn’t seem to have that problem, you can see many people in their early twenties and late teens attending the festival.
Every year we screen our audience – to use a professional jargon. We conduct careful sociological research of our audience – not just the ones who come to cinemas, but also the ones that watch our films online. So, we know exactly who “comes” to us – what they’re interested in, where they heard about the festival, which visit is it and so on. Based on that, we can get a picture of the audience, and most importantly – what they expect from us. That translates into how the festival looks, what and how it’s showing, and where and how it’s promoted.