Hanna Polak (born 1967) is a Polish director, cinematographer and producer. For her short documentary film, ''

The Children of Leningradsky ''The Children of Leningradsky'' ( pl, Dzieci z Leningradzkiego) is a 2005 Polish short documentary film about a community of homeless children living in the Leningradsky railway station in Moscow. Directed by Andrzej Celiński and Hanna Polak ...

'', about a community of homeless children living in the

Leningradsky railway station Moscow Leningradsky railway terminal (russian: Ленинградский вокзал, ''Leningradsky vokzal'') also known as Moscow Passazhirskaya station (russian: Москва-Главная-Пассажирская) is the oldest of Mosc ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, she was nominated for an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

and an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

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

Kraków Film Festival The Kraków Film Festival ( pl, Krakowski Festiwal Filmowy) is one of Europe's oldest events dedicated to documentary, animation and other short film forms. It has been organised every year since 1961. The Artistic President of the festival is ...

for ''Railway Station Ballad''.

Early life

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

Katowice Katowice ( , , ; szl, Katowicy; german: Kattowitz, yi, קאַטעוויץ, Kattevitz) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Upper Silesian metropolitan area. It is the 11th most popul ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. 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 (russian: Всероссийский государственный институт кинематографии имени С. А. Герасимова, meaning ''All-Russian State Institute of Cinemat ...

(VGIK), in Moscow.

Career

In 2004, Polak completed her documentary film, ''

'', 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 annou ...

. 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, Filmm ...

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

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...

, 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. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 tic ...

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

Filmfest München The Munich International Film Festival (german: Filmfest München) 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/earl ...

Documentary Edge Festival The Doc Edge, formerly DOCNZ International Documentary Film Festival or simply DOCNZ Film Festival, and then Documentary Edge Festival, is New Zealand's Academy Award-qualifying international documentary film festival, run annually by the Documen ...

, 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, it has become the leading festival of Central and Eastern Europe cinema in Italy. References External linksOffi ...

, EuroDok Film Festival,

International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights The International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) is one of the most important international events dedicated to cinema and human rights, located in the heart of Geneva, "international capital of human rights". The inspiration and ...

One World Film Festival One World (Czech: ''Jeden svět'') is the largest human rights film festival in the world (125,947 spectators in 2018), held annually in Prague and other 36 cities of the Czech Republic, with a selection later shown in Brussels and other countries. ...

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 premium television network, 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 ba ...

, ABC (

American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Cali ...

Canal+ Canal+ (Canal Plus, , meaning 'Channel Plus'; sometimes abbreviated C+ or Canal) is a French premium television channel launched in 1984. It is 100% owned by the Groupe Canal+, which in turn is owned by Vivendi. The channel broadcasts several ki ...

France 2 France 2 () is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4 and France 5. France Télévisions also participates in Arte and Euronews. Since 3:20 CET on 7 ...

Fuji Television JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as and colloquially known as CX, is a Japanese television station based in Odaiba today is a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay, Japan, across the Rainbow Bridge from central Tokyo. Odaiba was initially b ...

ITN Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based television production company. It is made up of two divisions: Broadcast News and ITN Productions. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, N ...

, TVP (

Telewizja Polska Telewizja Polska S.A. (; "Polish Television"; TVP), also known in English as the public Polish Television is a Polish state media corporation. It is the largest Polish television network, although viewership has been declining in the 2010s. Sinc ...

TVN (Poland) TVN (Polish pronunciation: ) 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. It 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 (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

(IDFA),

Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival is a documentary film festivals held annually in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The festival began in 1991, with a screening of ten Academy Award-nominated documentaries. Overview The festival screens 100 docume ...

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 nig ...

, 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 ...

Millennium Docs Against Gravity - Hanna Polak

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

UNICEF UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Devel ...

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 research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees and is accre ...

, North Carolina, Chapel Hill;

University of Guadalajara The University of Guadalajara ( es, Universidad de Guadalajara) is a public higher education institution in the Mexican city of Guadalajara. The university has several high schools as well as graduate and undergraduate campuses, which are distr ...

, Mexico; North Texas University;

Monterey Institute of International Studies The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), formerly known as the Monterey Institute of International Studies, is an American graduate school of Middlebury College, a private college in Middlebury, Vermont. Established ...

, California;

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...

, Vermont;

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

, 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) Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego) is a governmental administration office concerned with various aspects of Polish culture. It was formed on 31 October 200 ...

, 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 * ''

'' (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 Culture.pl is a large web portal devoted to Polish culture. It was founded by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in March 2001. Written in Polish, English and Russian, the site promotes the work of Polish artists around the world and is a popular infor ...

''Russia's Invisible Children – An Interview with Hanna Polak''
at

''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 a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

''Something Better To Come''
at

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

''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. The site is updated several times a day, with ...

''
''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 Film ...

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

Indiewire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollyw ...

''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 York ...

''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 media company owned by Penske Media Corporation. The company was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933 it added ''Daily Variety'', based ...

Polak on Choosing Her Protagonist''
at

(

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

)
Hanna Polak
on

Vimeo Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as ...

Hanna Polak
on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

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