The Academy Awards will announce its choice for Best Documentary Feature of the year in March. But it won’t be the last word on the subject.

FIPRESCI — the International Federation of Film Critics – today announced the launch of the Documentary Grand Prix, a new award for the best documentary film of the year that will be presented annually at Millennium Docs Against Gravity in Poland, one of the biggest documentary festivals in the world.

“The winner will be selected through a vote by all members of this prestigious federation,” notes a release, “representing over 50 national sections and 30 more countries with individual members.” The inaugural award will be revealed at the opening gala of the 23rd MDAG on May 7. Documentaries released during the calendar year of 2025 will be eligible.

“It’s massive,” MDAG Artistic Director Karol Piekarczyk said of the announcement. “The fact that FIPRESCI chose Millennium Docs Against Gravity to be the place where this award will be presented each year is such an amazing recognition for us.”

Piekarczyk explains that FIPRESCI critics will choose from among features released at festivals or other means, and each member can suggest films for consideration. “This is going to be round one,” he said. “And then after first round of voting, there’s going to be five nominees that are going to come out from that,” with a final vote determining the winner. “The five nominees, we want as many [FIPRESCI members] as possible to see them so that they can make an informed choice.”

Time will tell the degree to which the FIPRESCI top 5 differ from the five Oscar nominees that will be announced this week.

“It is very possible that there are going to be similar films that have been awarded at different festivals and that have been nominated or being on the Academy long list,” Piekarczyk observed. “That’s understandable because they’re great films.”

It’s impossible, realistically, for a feature documentary to achieve an Oscar nomination without having an awards campaign behind it. That won’t be the case with the Documentary Grand Prix.

“I really like the uniqueness of this prize, that it’s the film critics,” Piekarczyk commented. “That’s what we hope, that there’s going to be films that are going to be recognized mostly under merit and on how they are. And especially when it’s at the nominations point, everybody will have a chance to see them… I’m really, really extremely excited to see which films are going to get to the top 5 and which other films nearly got to top 5, and it’s going to be great to see the winner.”

FIPRESCI announces an annual Grand Prix for film at the San Sebastián Film Festival in Spain, with fiction and nonfiction films eligible. Typically, a narrative/fiction film wins – unsurprising, given that most critics focus on that area of filmmaking rather than on nonfiction.

“FIPRESCI’s commitment to promoting outstanding cinema and defending freedom of expression continues with this new initiative in partnership with MDAG,” FIPRESCI President Ahmed Shawky said in a statement. “For more than 25 years, the Grand Prix has been the highest annual award FIPRESCI bestows on a film. Now, it is the right time to extend equivalent recognition to documentary cinema, together with a partner festival that shares our values. The FIPRESCI Documentary Grand Prix will become the critics’ flagship annual award, and we are happy that MDAG will be its home.”

In addition to the Documentary Grand Prix, starting this year, MDAG will host a three-member FIPRESCI Jury which will award a prize to the best film in the Main Competition of the festival. FIPRESCI selects prize winners at other major festivals, including Cannes, Venice, and Toronto. FIPRESCI’s importance is testament to the continued relevance of critics.

“I actually think that from the perspective of cinema, film criticism is doing still quite well,” Piekarczyk told Deadline. “I think audiences still look to reviews and they still want to know what [rating] critics gave them.”