The Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival has come of age – it celebrates its 18th edition! Once again viewers will be able to watch the best documentary cinema from all around the world. As it already became a tradition, the program includes new thematic sections, connected to subjects that were of particular importance to filmmakers throughout the last year. One of them is THE ALPHABET OF PROTESTS. Films in this section demonstrate that you only have to make the first step in order to do something useful for society and the planet. Who knows, maybe it will prove to be a small step for us, but a great leap for humanity? The festival will start on 3rd September and until then, we recommend watching other films, available on VOD.MDAG.PL, that refer to the issues presented in the Alphabet of Protest section. You can buy one-time access to the films for PLN 9.50 or buy a pass for several films!

NEW: THE EVENT, dir. Sergey Loznitsa

Leningrad, hot days of June 19-24, 1991. The news of Colonel Yanayev's coup d'état in Moscow drew huge crowds into the streets and squares. The citizens are tearing leaflets out of their hands trying to get any information. Every now and then, like electric impulses, contradictory messages run through the sea of people - rumours abound of the deaths of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. When the putschist-controlled television shows the ballet "Swan Lake" (already shown at the time of the change of power in the USSR), the crowd reports on the dead in the streets of the capital and in the Baltic republics. Anatoly Sobchak, mayor of the rebellious city, speaks to the people filling the square in front of the Winter Palace, where the Bolsheviks launched their revolution in 1917. Songs by Vladimir Vysotsky and Viktor Coy, leader of the cult group Kino, resound. Poems are recited from the stands, and banners with slogans like "Down with Communism" or "Fascism will not pass" prove that there was once a chance for a different, anti-totalitarian Russia, which had its own Maydan.

SONITA, dir. Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami

If 18-year old Sonita had a say in things, Michael Jackson would be her father and Rihanna her mother. She captures her dream of being a famous rapper in her scrapbook. For the time being, her only fans are the other teenage girls in a Tehran shelter. There, Sonita, a refugee from Afghanistan, gets counseling for the traumas she has suffered and guidance in shaping her future. Her family has a very different future planned for her: as a bride she’s worth $9,000. What’s more, women aren’t allowed to sing in Iran. How can Sonita still succeed in making her dreams come true?

WELCOME TO CHECHNYA, dir. David France

Since 2017, Chechnya’s tyrannical leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has waged a depraved operation to “cleanse the blood” of LGBTQ Chechens, overseeing a government-directed campaign to detain, torture and execute them. With no help from the Kremlin and only faint global condemnation, activists take matters into their own hands. In his new documentary, David France uses a remarkable approach to anonymity to expose this atrocity and to tell the story of an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.

UNDERGROUND WOMEN'S STATE, dir. Anna Zdrojewska, Claudia Snochowska - Gonzalez

The film has no English subtitles.

In Poland since 1993 anti-abortion law, forbidding pregnancy termination on social grounds, has been in force. Meanwhile the number of illegal abortions performed in the country is estimated at even 200 thousand yearly. An access to safe medical procedures is mainly the matter of money. “Underground Women’s State” is an image of Polish reality, where anti-abortion law exists only on paper. Eight women who had illegal abortion decided to talk about their experiences, for the first time.

WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE WORLD'S ON FIRE?, dir. Roberto Minervini

The film tells the story of an African American community in the southern States during the summer of 2017, when a string of brutal killings of black men sent shockwaves throughout the country. A meditation on the state of race in America, this film is an intimate portrait into the lives of those who struggle for justice, dignity, and survival in a country which is not on their side.