Weekend with Millennium Docs Against Gravity

Weekend with Millennium Docs Against Gravity

tickets: 11 zł / single movie, 48 zł / all movies

We invite you to the highest quality documentary cinema. We will show six outstanding films featuring unique aesthetic values as well as a number of socially relevant subjects.

Millennium Docs Against Gravity (formerly: PLANETE+ DOC FF) is one of the most important documentary film festivals in Europe, awarded by the Polish Film Institute as the most important international film event in Poland. Once again the festival is held throughout the country. During the Weekend with Millennium Docs Against Gravity we will show the best documentaries of the last year and the audience will choose a film, that will receive the Arthouse Cinemas Network Award.

Among the movies you can find “Last Men in Aleppo”, awarded at the Sundance Festival, that tells the story of the work of Syrian White Helmets; “Amateurs in Space” about two friends that build a space rocket or “A German Life” telling the story of Brunhilda Pomsel, Goebbels’ secretary. The program also includes more intimate pictures – “How to Meet a Mermaid” is a personal trip to the sea that took a brother of the director, Coco Schrijber. We will also show more sensational documentaries, such as “All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone” that focuses on American independent political journalism. In the program you can also find beautifully filmed “The Land of the Enlightened” – a trip to Afghanistan alongside a gang of teenagers living in the mountains.

Schedule:
May 19th
16:00 How to Meet a Mermaid
Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, 2016, 90 min.
17:45 Amateurs in Space
Denmark, 2016, 89 min.

May 20th
16:15 The Land of the Enlightened
Belgium, 2015, 84 min
18: Last Men in Aleppo
Denmark, 2017, 110 min.

May 21st
14:15 All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone
USA, 2016, 90 min.
18:00 A German Life
Austria, Germany, 2016, 113 min.

Last Men in Aleppo
Denmark, 2017, 110 min.
directors: Feras Fayyad, Søren Steen Jespersen
After five years of war in Syria, Aleppo’s remaining residents prepare themselves for a siege. Khalid, Subhi and Mahmoud, founding members of The White Helmets, have remained in the city to help their fellow citizens-and experience daily life, death, struggle and triumph in a city under fire.

Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad in collaboration with Aleppo Media Center filmed the Syrian war for two years, which led to this breathtaking work, an imperative piece of boots-on-the-ground reportage following the exploits of the White Helmets, a search and rescue organization who indefatigably struggle on amidst Aleppo’s humanitarian catastrophe.

Amateurs in Space
Denmark, 2016, 89 min.
director: Max Kestner
The two friends, Peter and Kristian, share a boyhood dream of traveling into space in their own home-built space rocket. If they succeed, the two Danes will write themselves into the annals of history as the world’s first amateurs to go into space. Peter and Kristian, who are the only people on the project full-time, have gathered a small group of spaceflight enthusiasts who contribute to the project alongside their regular jobs. The team has been working like this for five years, with the majority of their building materials bought in DIY stores. And now their rocket is nearly ready. But different opinions arise and collide, and suddenly the two friends wind up in a serious argument. They lose their tempers and before long they are in a space race, not against the world, but each other.

How to Meet a Mermaid
Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, 2016, 90 min.
director: Coco Schrijber
Lex Schrijber went on a diving trip to Egypt in October 2000, but he never returned. His shoes, clothes and diver’s knife were found – stacked neatly – on a Red Sea beach. A diver never dives without his knife, and this fact alone was proof enough to filmmaker Coco Schrijber that her brother had made a fateful decision that day. Fifteen years later, she returns to the place where Lex was last seen, to find out why he disappeared and whether there were witnesses to his final hours. As in her previous work (including First Kill and Bloody Mondays & Strawberry Pies), Schrijber takes a multilayered, essay-like approach complemented by a lavish soundtrack, with the sea both alluring and repelling. Scenes of her search are juxtaposed with gorgeous seascapes that capture both the beauty and the destructive power of the ocean. She broadens the narrative from the personal perspective on Lex’s story by connecting it with the tales of Mexican surfer Miguel as he prepares his flight across the ocean, and the tragedy surrounding Rebecca, who disappeared from a cruise ship.

The Land of the Enlightened
Belgium, 2015, 84 min
director: Pieter-Jan De Pue
A gang of Afghan kids from the Kuchi tribe dig out old Soviet mines and sell the explosives to children working in a lapis lazuli mine. When not dreaming of the time when American troops finally withdraw from their land, another gang of children keeps tight control on the caravans smuggling the blue gemstones through the arid mountains of Pamir.

In this seamless blend of fictional and documentary form, we experience a stunning cinematic journey into the beauty of war-tormented Afghanistan. Shot over seven years on evocative 16mm footage, first-time director Pieter-Jan De Pue paints a whimsical yet haunting look at the condition of Afghanistan left for the next generation. As American soldiers prepare to leave, we follow De Pue deep into this hidden land where young boys form wild gangs to control trade routes, sell explosives from mines left over from war, and climb rusting tanks as playgrounds—making the new rules of war based on the harsh landscape left to them. De Pue’s transportative and wonderfully crafted film confronts the visceral beauty and roughness of survival, serving as a testament to the spirited innovation of childhood and the extreme resilience of a people and country.

A German Life
Austria, Germany, 2016, 113 min.
directors: Christian Krönes, Florian Weigensamer, Roland Schrotthofer, Olaf S. Müller
Although Brunhilde Pomsel always described herself as just being a side-line figure and not at all interested in politics, she nevertheless got closer to one of the worst criminals in world history than anyone else presently alive. Today aged 105, Pomsel used to work as secretary, stenographer and typist for the Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Brunhilde Pomsel’s life mirrors the major historical ruptures of the 20th century and German life thereafter. Nowadays, many people presume that the dangers of war and fascism have long been overcome. Brunhilde Pomsel makes it clear that this is certainly not the case. “A German Life” forces viewers to ask themselves what they would have done and whether they would have sacrificed any possible moral principles in order to advance their own careers. Her extraordinary biography and unique personal journey into the past lead to disturbing and timeless questions: Have we moved on or are we still unclear about our own morals and humanity and more importantly: Where do I stand on these issues today?

All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone
USA, 2016, 90 min.
directors: Fred Peabody
Independence was the watchword of legendary American investigative journalist I.F. Stone, who published his tiny, highly-respected newsletter I.F. Stone’s Weekly from 1953 to 1971. “You can’t fulfill your function unless you’re free!” Stone said. This is a piece of wisdom that still inspires many, including Glenn Greenwald, who published Edward Snowden’s NSA secrets, and John Carlos Frey, who did research into mass graves at the Mexican-American border. In this energetic film, they and other independent, investigative, adversarial journalists talk passionately about their work and allow the camera to follow them as they use government documents to expose deception. It’s work that involves a great deal of patience and a certain aptitude for paperwork. “All governments lie” was I.F. Stone’s motto – and it continues to serve as a maxim for the film’s featured journalists in their time-consuming, specialized work, exposing stories in which the corporate-owned mainstream media have shown little interest.