The DOCS AGAINST GRAVITY FILM FESTIVAL offers 10 days of screenings and Q&As with authors, and it also provides a great opportunity to engage in lively debates and exceptional music events. The festival also features the Documentary Academy, which contains a great educational programme for both young and old and showcases films that are unique and suitable both for students and teachers (and from this year on, for parents and senior citizens, too). Combined with workshops and meetings, the films present a variety of perspectives to shape interpretive abilities in the audience and to develop their civic attitudes.
Surveillance, aliens and how to change the world
This year's festival programme also includes a selection of films on freedom of speech, surveillance on the Web, Creative Commons, hacktivism and access to information. "We are going to screen four docs to raise awareness of freedom on the Web. The flagship title in the section is the Academy-awarded "Citizenfour" by Laura Poitras, which focuses on Edward Snowden," says the festival's director Artur Liebhart.
Apart from this, the audience are in for such thought-provoking treats as "Profile: Amina", "Killswitch" or "Aaron Swartz: Sieć jest nasza" ("Aaron Swartz: The Web's Ours)".
The festival opens with the amazing "Wizyta" ("Visit") by Michael Madsen, who tackles the question whether we are ready for the encounter with the aliens and if they have the same rights in our world as we do.
The audience of 12. edition of the Docs Against Gravity Film Festival are also advised to see "Scena ciszy" ("The Look of Silence") by Joshua Oppenheimer, which in turn tries to elaborate on the question whether documentaries are able to change the world.
Lower Silesia Grand Prix
This year's edition of the DOCS AGAINST GRAVITY offers the Lower Silesia Grand Prix, a prize of 3000 EUR to be presented to the authors of the film selected by the special jury. This year's Lower Silesia Grand Prix jury includes novelist, essayist, screenwriter and poet Olga Tokarczuk, Marcin Cichy, a musical producer and visual artist, and Arkadiusz Lewicki, a film and media researcher affiliated with the University of Wroclaw. Tokarczuk has published a number of novels, including "Dom dzienny, dom nocny" ("House of Day, House of Night"), "Gra na wielu bębenkach" ("Playing on Many Drums" and her latest Księgi Jakubowe" ("Jacob's Scriptures"), and her works have garnered prestigious literary prizes such as the Kościelski Foundation and the Nike Awards. Since 2000, Cichy has been performing with Igor Pudło as Skalpel, a globally renowned new jazz duo which is one of the most intriguing phenomena in the Polish music industry. Lewicki has published numerous books on film and popular culture as well as articles on the cinema, television and popular culture; he is also the Wroclaw subject matter coordinator of the Documentary Academy.
