Winner of the 21st MDAG Bank Millennium Award nominated for Oscar®

Every year, many films that started their journey in Poland during Millennium Docs Against Gravity received Oscar® nominations. The 21st edition of MDAG turned out to be unique in this respect, however, because apart from "No Other Land", four other documentaries were nominated in the Best Documentary Feature Film category, which had their Polish (but also international and European) premieres during last year's edition of the festival.

The impressive development of the festival in recent years has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which in 2024 placed MDAG on the prestigious list of festivals qualifying for the® Oscar in the Best Documentary Feature Film category. This is a huge achievement of the entire festival team because this exclusive list has practically not changed for decades, and it includes only the most important and largest film events, such as the Berlinale or the Cannes Film Festival.

Millennium Docs Against Gravity, which grew into the second largest documentary film festival in Europe, thanks to its scale and program has become an important point of world and international premieres and the start of the road to the most important awards.

This also means that the Grand Prix – Bank Millennium Award is gaining in importance and from 2025 it will open the way for the winner to the most important awards in the world of film.

Last year's winner, the film "No Other Land" (directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor) is a moving story of Palestinian inhabitants of one of the villages in the West Bank that captured the hearts of audiences, critics and filmmakers from all over the world.

The other four nominated titles are: "Sugarcane" (directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie), "Porcelain War" (directed by Slava Leontyev, Brendan Bellomo), "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat" (directed by Johan Grimonprez) and "Black Box Diaries" (directed by Shiori Ito).

Congratulations to the creators.

Bank Millennium has been culturally involved since the establishment i.e. for more than 35 years. In parallel to its business activity, it has supported national and local cultural events. It is a sponsor of culture on a 360° basis - promoting art in almost all its forms, including: music, painting, sculpture, film, theatre, photography, literature and performance. It reaches for niche and popular culture; it is a long-term partner by design. Support in this area remains very important for the Bank.

For more about the bank's sponsorship, see: https://www.bankmillennium.pl/o-banku/centrum-prasowe/mecenat-kultury

For more information about the festival, please visit: www.mdag.pl