Weekend with Millennium Docs Against Gravity

Enjoy the weekend with the most interesting documents from around the world!

Weekend with Millennium Docs Against Gravity

18th-20th May, 2018 | Forum Cinema
tickets: 10 PLN for a single movie

We have the pleasure of introducing you to the this year’s schedule of Weekend with Millennium Docs Against Gravity (18th-20th May, 2018). This year, we decided to honour Polish documentary cinematography, which in recent years has been conquering film festivals around the world, often gaining more fame abroad than in the country.

Schedule:
May 18th, 18:30
The Prince and the Dybbuk 2017, 82′

May 19th
17:45 – Call me Tony – 2017, 63′
19:00 – Tourists – 2017, 72′

May 20th
14:00 – “Shades of Freedom” competitors screening on the occasion of the centennial of Independence – 75′
19:00 – Looking for Jesus – 2018, 73′

The Prince and the Dybbuk
2017, 82 min.
Directors: Elwira Niewiera, Piotr Rosołowski
Tracing Waszyński’s footsteps from Poland, Ukraine and the USA into Italy, Israel and Spain, directors Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski (Domino Effect) take us on a cinematic journey into the life of a human chameleon, constantly changing names, religion, titles and countries to write his own life story as if it were a film.

Call Me Tony
2017, 63 min.
Director: Klaudiusz Chrostowski
Konrad, an 18-year-old bodybuilder who wants to be an actor, desperately fights for his absent father’s attention. Konrad lives in a small mining town in southern Poland. In his attempts to get noticed he looks up to his favorite action movie heroes, spends hours at the gym and signs up to a body building competition. An inner conflict between who he is and who he thinks he should be to get people’s acceptance soon leads to a depression. His life changes after he revisits his childhood passion for acting. Will he find his own way? CALL ME TONY is a coming of age story about the time, when the whole world expects us to have answers, but all we have are questions.

Tourists
2017, 72 min.
Directors: Mateusz Romaszkan, Marta Wójtowicz-Wcisło
Here is a dollar, and we are filming! Thus begins a journey into the world of resorts, optional excursions, and the rituals of mass tourism-an all-inclusive package that explores the world of the ambitions and fantasies of Poland’s middle class. The documentary by Marta Wójtowicz-Wcisło (who once worked as a tour guide) and Mateusz Romaszkan is a self-portrait, a collective selfie. Using only amateur recordings, the filmmakers put them together to create a fascinating journey that, although covering different continents, follows a well-marked path staked out by the tourism industry. Hurrying to take in each successive point on the itinerary, we lose out on the chance to enjoy them; laboriously created facades of exoticism separate us from reality-just like the windows of hotel rooms, buses, and planes. The views passing by outside are captured by camera lenses but do not fit together into any sort of coherent picture: this world of recordings remains incomprehensible, strange, foreign. Both “tourists” and “natives” play their designated roles, repeating over and over again, Smile! Which only intensifies the sadness of the tropics.

“Shades of Freedom” competitors screening on the occasion of the centennial of Independence
75′
Since January, Discovery Poland, National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute and Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival have been encouraging creators to show what freedom is for them. Poland’s 100th anniversary of regaining independence is the inspiration for the theme. The winners of the competition will be announced on May 18 at the Millennium Docs Against Gravity Award Gala. We will screen short documentary films awarded in the competition.

Looking for Jesus
2018, 73 min.
Director: Katarzyna Kozyra
“Looking for Jesus” is the latest project by Katarzyna Kozyra, whose starting point was information about the so-called Jerusalem Syndrome, an acute delusional disorder which had been reported by medical professionals only in the 2nd half of the 20th century. After visiting the Holy Land, people afflicted with the syndrome start to identify with Biblical characters – usually with the Messiah. To date, the artist has visited Jerusalem several times in order to find those who in the early 21st century believe themselves to be Jesus. The first journey took place in 2012. The result is over 100 hours of video footage from interviews and pictures of the city which serves as a backdrop for religious rituals and a scene for people of various faiths, denominations and colours, subsequent Messiahs who try to convince the artist they are miraculous and genuine, surrounding themselves with colourful crowds of pilgrims and locals. Kozyra encounters incredible personalities. Each of her characters hides a fascinating story, and all of them combined constitute a project presenting ways and means of carrying out one’s faith, its place and role in today’s world, and values on which we build our reality.