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the crucial matters. In addition to the funds provided for or disbursed under the program, also
volunteers' genuine commitment, time spent on helping the beneficiaries and own work by the
volunteers, as well as bringing community members together on assistance efforts, also played a
prominent role (as in the previous edition). The Bank Millennium Foundation implements the idea of
volunteerism by aiming at creating a network of Bank Millennium Group volunteers around this idea
and around a common response and acting for the benefit of other people.
In 2022, grants were awarded to 33 initiative leaders. 147 volunteers along with their family members
and friends took part in these activities. Support was granted to 8,252 beneficiaries – Ukrainian
children and adults, including those taken care of in social care institutions, people with disabilities,
orphans, homeless people, women, including single mothers, and senior citizens. Every gesture,
however large or small, every item shared with the beneficiaries and every effort taken was thought
out carefully, because the volunteers of the Bank Millennium Foundation thoroughly scrutinized the
stories and circumstances of the people they decided to help, responded quickly and often
contributed their own, private funds, complementing in this way the grants received from the
Foundation.
3.8.4. PATRONAGE OF CULTURE
For more than 30 years, cultural involvement has been an important part of Bank Millennium’s social
activities. The Bank supports cultural undertakings with a national and local range alike. It is a 360°
patron of culture, promoting art in nearly all its manifestations, including music, painting, sculpture,
film, theatre, photography, literature and performance. Its supports niche and popular culture. Its
assumption is to be a long-term partner. For 17 years, it has been a patron of the Millennium Docs
Against Gravity festival, the largest film festival in Poland, for 20 years, it has sponsored the
International Festival of Traditional Jazz “Old Jazz Meeting Złota Tarka”, and it has also been a long-
time sponsor of the Lidzbark Humour and Satire Nights, one of the most important Polish cabaret
events. For 17 years, the Bank funded the Golden Sceptre award for outstanding creators of culture,
for 11 years, the Bank was the patron of the “Millennium Pearls” (“Perły Millennium”) joint program
of Bank Millennium and Polish TV (TVP), whose purpose was to produce, promote and present artistic
events in the high art realm on Polish TV. It has also sponsored the Sacrum Profanum contemporary
music festival, the Bella Skyway Festival - a multimedia show prepared by an international group of
artists, the “Two Theatres” Festival, the Gdańsk Music Festival, the Mozart Festival in the Warsaw
Chamber Opera, and many other events.
In 2022, the Bank took the patronage of the exhibition of the works of Polish photographers arranged
under the name “Solidarity”, showing the drama of refugees from the war-torn Ukraine and the
extraordinary solidarity of Polish people towards them. The exhibition was shown in Gdańsk, Warsaw
and Chełm.
Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival
The most important cultural project endorsed by the Bank is the Millennium Docs Against Gravity
festival. It is the largest film festival in Poland and a major documentary film festival in the world.
Bank Millennium has been the festival’s partner already for 17 years and it continues within its
framework the audio description project that allows people with disabilities to participate in the
festival. The Bank has also funded the festival main award, and in 2022 it also funded two special
awards for Ukrainian artists.
In May 2022, the 19th edition of the Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival took place, for the third
time in the hybrid formula. 192 films were shown during the festival and their presentation was
accompanied by meetings with artists and protagonists and debates on important issues addressed on
screen. Like every year, the festival touched on a number of important issues - from ecology, through
diversity, politics, psychology, human rights, art, pop-culture, to family relations. The festival was