Hanna Polak (born 1967) is a Polish director, cinematographer and producer. For her short documentary film, '' The Children of Leningradsky'', about a community of homeless children living in the Leningradsky railway station in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, she was nominated for an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

and an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

. In 2003, she was awarded Best Producer of Documentary Movies at the

Kraków Film Festival The Krakow Film Festival () is one of Europe's oldest events dedicated to documentary, animation and other short film forms. It is one of the only five FIAPF accredited documentary and short film festivals in the world.https://fiapf.org/festiv ...

for ''Railway Station Ballad''.

Early life

She was born in 1967''Hanna Polak''
at the Polish Internet Movie Database in

Katowice Katowice (, ) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Katowice urban area. As of 2021, Katowice has an official population of 286,960, and a resident population estimate of around 315,000. K ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. From 1987 to 1988 she worked as a stage performer in the Theatre of Entertainment, Chorzov. From 1989 to 1991 Polak studied acting and theatre at the Acting School in Wroclaw and Warsaw. She graduated with the master's degree from the Cinematography division of the

Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, officially the S. A. Gerasimov All-Russian University of Cinematography (, meaning ''All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography named after S. A. Gerasimov''), a.k.a. VGIK, is a film school in Moscow, ...

(VGIK), in Moscow.

Career

In 2004, Polak completed her documentary film, '' The Children of Leningradsky'', which was nominated for an

Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) This is a list of films by year that have received an Academy Award together with the other nominations for best documentary short film. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announ ...

. It also received the Best Documentary Achievement Award from the

International Documentary Association International Documentary Association (IDA), founded in 1982, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) that promotes nonfiction filmmakers, and is dedicated to increasing public awareness for the documentary genre. Their major program areas are: Advocacy, Film ...

and it was nominated for an

in two categories: Best Documentary and Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Editing. This film was also nominated to be a Notable Video by the Adult

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, and it has received the Gracie Allen Award, given by the American Women in Radio & Television, amongst many other awards. Polak's additional works include, ''Al - Tribute to Albert Maysles''; ''Faces of Homelessness''; ''Battle of Warsaw 1920 in 3D'', and many others. She directed and produced ''Love and Rubbish'', for the Why Poverty? series in 2012, which won A Corto di Donne Women's Short Film Festival. In 2014, Polak has completed her documentary film '' Something Better To Come'', which received the

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Description IDFA is an independent, international meeting place for audiences ...

(IDFA) Special Jury Award, and won main prizes at several film festivals, including

Filmfest München The Munich International Film Festival () is the largest summer film festival in Germany and second only in size and importance to the Berlinale. It has been held annually since 1983 and takes place in late June or early July. It presents fe ...

, Munich International Documentary Film Festival, Documentary Edge Festival, Docs Against Gravity, ArtDoc Fest in Moscow,

Trieste Film Festival The Trieste Film Festival is an international film festival founded in 1989. Held annually on the third week of January in Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Region ...

, EuroDok Film Festival, International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights, One World Film Festival and won other film festivals and awards. Polak's works as a producer, director, and cinematographer have appeared on major television networks worldwide including American

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

, ABC (

American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American Commercial broadcasting, commercial broadcast Television broadcaster, television and radio Radio network, network that serves as the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division ...

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

France 2 France 2 () is a French free-to-air public television channel. The flagship channel of France Télévisions, it broadcasts generalist programming including news, entertainment (such as dramas, films, and game shows), factual programmes, and sp ...

Fuji Television JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...

ITN Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based media production and broadcast journalism company. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, New York City, New York, Paris, Sydney and Washin ...

, TVP (

Telewizja Polska Telewizja Polska S.A. (; TVP), also known in English as Polish Television, is a Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster in Poland, founded in 1952. It is the oldest and largest Polish television network. After 2015, when the right-wing po ...

TVN (Poland) TVN (stylised in all lowercase) is a Polish free-to-air television station, network and a media and entertainment group in Poland. It was co-founded by Polish businessmen Mariusz Walter, Jan Wejchert and Swiss entrepreneur Bruno Valsangiacomo. I ...

, Belgian Radio and TV, and many other TV stations. Her films have been screened in hundreds film festivals around the world, including

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

(IDFA), Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival,

True/False Film Festival True/False Film Fest is an annual documentary film festival that takes place in Columbia, Missouri. The Fest occurs on the first weekend in March (sometimes beginning in late February), with films being shown from Thursday evening to Sunday nigh ...

, and FIPA (

Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels The International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes or International Documentary Festival – FIPADOC ( (FIPA)), founded in 1987 by Michel Mitrani (1930-1996), was first held in Cannes in October 1987., In 2019, the FIPA became FIPADOC,,, an int ...

Millennium Docs Against Gravity - Hanna Polak

In 2006, Polak's photography works won her third prize in the

UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...

International Photography Competition Photo of the Year. For her cinematography work for Stone Silence, shot in Afghanistan, she was awarded with the Artistic Mastery of Photographing award from the Kiev Film Festival. For her cinematography work for Something Better to Come, she was awarded with the Best Cinematography award from Gdańsk DocFilm Festival and with Canon Non Fiction Frame Special Mention from Docs Against Gravity film festival. Polak has collaborated with different aid agencies to help unprivileged children. For her charitable efforts, Polak was awarded the prestigious Golden Heart Award, the “Award for serving the uppermost ideals of mankind” by

NTV (Russia) NTV (Cyrillic: НТВ) is a Russian free-to-air television channel that was launched as a subsidiary of Vladimir Gusinsky's company . Since 14 April 2001 Gazprom Media controls the network. NTV has no official meaning according to Igor Malashen ...

, and the Crystal Mirror award by the Mirror magazine in Poland, an award that recognizes “people of dialogue, those who unite, not divide.” She has lectured on documentary filmmaking at many universities worldwide, including

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health The UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health is the public health school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a public university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees and is accredited by ...

, North Carolina, Chapel Hill;

University of Guadalajara The University of Guadalajara () is a public university, public research university located in Guadalajara, Mexico. It was originally established in 1586 and officially founded on 12 February 1791 as the Royal and Pontifical University of Gu ...

, Mexico; North Texas University;

Monterey Institute of International Studies Established in 1955, the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), formerly the Monterey Institute of International Studies, located in Monterey, California, is a graduate institute and satellite campus of Middlebury C ...

, California;

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists, Middlebury w ...

, Vermont;

University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

, Honolulu, and many others. Polak was a jury member at the

and the Document International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Glasgow, Scotland; she was a tutor for the EsoDoc workshop; and she was an expert for the

Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (Poland) The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage () is a ministry within Polish government led by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage responsible for national heritage preservation and Polish culture promotion. Ministry oversees state o ...

, evaluating documentary projects for the Polish Film Institute.

Filmography

* '' Something Better to Come'' (2014) - writer, director, cinematographer * ''The Officer’s Wife'' (2010) - cinematographer * ''Warsaw Battle 1920 in 3D'' (2010) - director, cinematographer * ''Faces of Homelessness'' (2010) - director, cinematographer * ''Kamienna Cisza'' (2007) - cinematographer * '' The Children of Leningradsky'' (2005) - director, cinematographer, producer * ''Al Tribute to Albert Maysles'' (2004) - director, cinematographer, producer * ''Railway Station Ballad'' (2003) - cinematographer, producer

References

External links

* *
''Polish Films at IDFA 2014''
at Culture.pl
''Russia's Invisible Children – An Interview with Hanna Polak''
at Culture.pl
''Hanna Polak - Danish Documentary website''
at

* ttp://www.childrenofleningradsky.com/ ''Children of Leningradsky - Official website''br>''Something Better To Come - Official website''''Something Better To Come''
at

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

''Something Better To Come''
at

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

"Oscars: 124 Pics Vying For Feature Documentary Trophy"
- ''

Deadline Hollywood ''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. It is updated several times a day, with en ...

''
''Sometimes You Have to Put Your Camera Down”: Director and Producer Hanna Polak on the She Does Podcast''
at

Filmmaker (magazine) ''Filmmaker'' is a quarterly publication magazine covering issues relating to independent film. The magazine was founded in 1992 by Karol Martesko-Fenster, Scott Macaulay and Holly Willis. The magazine is now published by the IFP ( Independent ...

''LFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Hanna Polak - 'Something Better to Come
at Indiewire
''Review: Something Better to Come''
at

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...

''Interview with Hanna Polak, Director and Producer of Something Better to Come - agnès films''

Something Better To Come': IDFA Review''
at

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

''Cinema Eye’s ‘Unforgettables’ Honorees Include Amy Winehouse, Angulo Brothers''
at

Variety (magazine) ''Variety'' is an American trade magazine owned by Penske Media Corporation. It was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933, ''Daily Variety'' was launched, based in ...

Polak on Choosing Her Protagonist''
at

(

)
Class: 'Something Better to Come
at Global Investigative Journalism Network (

)
Hanna Polak
on

Vimeo Vimeo ( ) is an American Online video platform, video hosting, sharing, and services provider founded in 2004 and headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices and operates on a ...

Hanna Polak
on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Polak, Hanna 1967 births Living people Polish women film directors Polish film producers Polish women film producers