The 2026 edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity expands its industry ambitions with a programme that positions documentary as a structural intervention into who gets seen, heard, and financed. Running from 7 to 11 May at the State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw, MDAG Industry consolidates the rapid evolution of the industry since 2021 into a dense platform for co-production, debate, and formal experimentation. Rather than framing inclusion as institutional rhetoric, the programme embeds it from co-production forums to accessibility workshops.
At its core sits MDAG CO-PRO, a closed platform designed to connect Polish producers with international partners, this year foregrounding collaboration with Sweden. Selected projects move through pitching sessions and industry meetings. Alongside this, the Progress Pitching Session offers a more open stage for projects at various stages of development.
The programme’s pedagogical strand is equally pronounced. A masterclass led by Erik Gandini and editor Johan Söderberg revisits a 25-year collaborative practice, framing editing as both a technical and philosophical act. Elsewhere, Alan Berliner offers a more introspective approach, treating personal archives and memory as compositional material.
Questions of form and proximity emerge in the masterclass on remote filmmaking by Mehrdad Oskouei and Soraya Akhalaghi, which reflects on long-distance collaboration under conditions of restriction.
The programme also foregrounds documentary as a space of resistance. Panels such as «Against Despair» position short-form work as a responsive medium capable of navigating hostile political climates, while DocStudio discussions on emotional realism push observational cinema beyond surface-level recording toward affective depth.
Perhaps most indicative of MDAG’s evolving priorities is its emphasis on accessibility as production practice. A workshop led by the Polish Film Institute addresses not only compliance but also the integration of accessibility into creative workflows.
Find more information on the 2026 MDAG Industry programme – HERE
