Main WATCH DOCS competition features 12 excellent documentaries, which differ wildly in origin, subject matter and film language. However, they all share two features, they revolve around human rights, and all premiered at the world's leading film festivals. The competition includes new films by renowned documentary masters – like Patricio Guzman, Mark Cousins, Matthew Heinemann, Maria Ramos.

The green dog competition has become a permanent part of our festival repertoire. This year, six films bringing together environmental awareness, human rights, and social issues, will compete for the green dog award. Among those are movies dedicated to eco-activists, saving endangered species, marine ecosystems, and an oil-based model of economy.

In this panoramic review of contemporary human rights documentaries, engaged filmmakers pose difficult questions and focus on topical subjects. The highlights include films about war crimes in Ukraine, the pitfalls of privatizing the Finnish home care system and the opportunities and threats associated with the use of the world's largest social media app. 

Supposedly, the measure of our humanity is our attitude towards animals. This year's retrospective is devoted to the relationships between humans and animals. Why do we treat some creatures as family members while averting our eyes from the conditions in which others live and die? The protagonists of this section's documentaries include dogs waiting for adoption in a shelter, birds of prey falling from the sky in a chaotic South Asian metropolis and the jaguar on the verge of extinction in the Bolivian jungle. 

Because of blunt manipulations used by Russia to justify the war in Ukraine, propaganda has again captured the world’s attention. The new instalment of the WATCH DOCS permanent programme section: from an analysis of a fascist documentary still inspiring politicians to a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of Hungarian state TV . 

This year's laureate of the Mark Nowicki Prize is the Chilean master of documentary poetics. For over 50 years, Patricio Guzmán has been making films devoted to the historic memory and violent turns of his homeland. As part of the presentation of his work, we will show his three most recent films that have already found their place in the 21st-century documentary canon, and his latest movie describing the recent Chilean revolt, which swept away the government and led to a change in the country's constitution. 

Better and lesser-known films, those that are short and long and, in our opinion, the most interesting Polish social documentaries of the recent season. Topics range from issues of LGBTQ+ people's rights to dog therapy for repeat offenders. 

This year's set of short documentaries includes films about the situation of LGBTQ+ people in the Arab world, the young generation that is in the mood for rebellion, and the unexpectedly fascinating and sensual side of childbirth. 

The WATCH DOCS collection will be free of charge on player.pl, and will include films such as Vit Klusak’s tragicomic doc about a provincial Neonazi, a brilliant analysis of corporate greenwashing by Werner Boote, and a humorous story of an aging sexpert from India.