25th WATCH DOCS. Human Rights in Film Program announced | WATCH DOCS

We’re excited to announce the program of the 25th WATCH DOCS IFF!
Starting today, you can explore the full lineup of this year’s jubilee edition of the WATCH DOCS International Film Festival. Across Warsaw cinemas - Kinoteka, Muranów, and KINOMUZEUM - as well as on the online platforms mojeekino.pl and Player, we will present 62 documentary films, featuring Polish and international premieres, archival gems, and classics of the genre. A total of 21 films will compete for awards in three festival competitions.

In addition to film screenings, the festival program features:

- dozens of Q&As with filmmakers,

- seven major panel discussions with journalists and experts,

- a masterclass with world-renowned director Kamal Aljafari,

- industry events and a concert by Ivo Dimchev.

Twenty-five years is a serious milestone, but WATCH DOCS isn’t slowing down — we’re kicking off the anniversary edition with a truly powerful opening. The festival will open with the latest film by Laura Poitras, made together with Mark Obenhaus: Cover-Up, which had its world premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival. This year’s edition will be packed with highlights from major festivals around the globe. Among them:

Awarded in Kraków and Jihlava, Silver by Natalia Koniarz — a dark, visually and sonically hypnotic descent into the Bolivian Cerro Rico mine, the place from which most of the silver used throughout human history has been extracted.

Winner of the top prize at Sheffield DocFest: Welded Together by Anastasiya Miroshnichenko — a moving story of a young Belarusian welder who, in a country stripped of hope, fights to preserve even a fragment of a future for herself and her little sister.

Recipient of the Œil d’Or, the most important documentary award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival: Imago by Deni Oumar Pitsaev — a visually stunning, emotionally charged film in which the director, trying to find his place in the Chechen diaspora, exposes hidden desires, family secrets and the cracks beneath the seemingly solid façade of tradition.

The only documentary from the main competition of this year’s Locarno Film Festival: With Hasan in Gaza. Its author, Kamal Aljafari — a renowned Palestinian filmmaker working with archival materials — will join us in Warsaw as a festival guest, receive the Marek Nowicki Prize, and lead a masterclass for our audience.

The festival kicks off on December 5. The cinema program runs until December 14, and a free collection of festival highlights will be available on Player.pl until the end of the year.