Hanna Polak

Hanna Polak

Nacimiento : 1967-07-21, Katowice, Śląskie, Poland

Historia

Hanna Polak (born 1967) is a Polish documentary 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, she was nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy Award. In 2003, she was awarded Best Producer of Documentary Movies at the Kraków Film Festival for Railway Station Ballad. In 2004, Polak completed her documentary film, "The Children of Leningradsky", which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). In 2014, Polak has completed her documentary film "Something Better To Come", which received the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) Special Jury Award, and won main prizes at several film festivals. Polak’s works as a producer, director, and cinematographer have appeared on major television networks worldwide including American HBO, ABC (American Broadcasting Company), Canal+, France 2, Fuji Television, ITN, TVP (Telewizja Polska), TVN (Poland), 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, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, True/False Film Festival, and FIPA (Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels). In 2006, Polak’s photography works won her third prize in the UNICEF 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), 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, North Carolina, Chapel Hill; University of Guadalajara, Mexico; North Texas University; Monterey Institute of International Studies, California; Middlebury College, Vermont; University of Hawaii, Honolulu, and many others. Polak was a jury member at the Kraków Film Festival 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), evaluating documentary projects for the Polish Film Institute.

Perfil

Hanna Polak

Películas

Angels of Sinjar
Director of Photography
Hanifa and Saeed barely survived the hell that ISIS inflicted on them and their people. Hanifa escaped kidnapping, but her younger sisters were enslaved by the Islamic State. Hanifa embarks on a mission to find them and bring them home.
Angels of Sinjar
Producer
Hanifa and Saeed barely survived the hell that ISIS inflicted on them and their people. Hanifa escaped kidnapping, but her younger sisters were enslaved by the Islamic State. Hanifa embarks on a mission to find them and bring them home.
Angels of Sinjar
Director
Hanifa and Saeed barely survived the hell that ISIS inflicted on them and their people. Hanifa escaped kidnapping, but her younger sisters were enslaved by the Islamic State. Hanifa embarks on a mission to find them and bring them home.
Something Better to Come
Director of Photography
Se trata de un viaje personal extraordinario de más de trece años por uno de los lugares más inhóspitos del mundo. Yula, de 11 años, vive en uno de los lugares más desolados de la Tierra: el Svalka, el vertedero más grande de Europa, a veinte kilómetros del centro de Moscú. Rodeada de alambre de espino y de guardias, la zona está fuertemente vigilada para mantener fuera a los intrusos. Pero en el vertedero vive un grupo de personas en una pequeña sociedad sin ley. Estas personas forman la familia más cercana de Yula; aquí vive su vida, y es aquí de donde brotará su futuro. Yula crece en esta tierra prohibida, y aún así se ríe, se enamora y se maquilla para estar más atractiva. Se atreve a soñar con salir de allí algún día.
Something Better to Come
Editor
Se trata de un viaje personal extraordinario de más de trece años por uno de los lugares más inhóspitos del mundo. Yula, de 11 años, vive en uno de los lugares más desolados de la Tierra: el Svalka, el vertedero más grande de Europa, a veinte kilómetros del centro de Moscú. Rodeada de alambre de espino y de guardias, la zona está fuertemente vigilada para mantener fuera a los intrusos. Pero en el vertedero vive un grupo de personas en una pequeña sociedad sin ley. Estas personas forman la familia más cercana de Yula; aquí vive su vida, y es aquí de donde brotará su futuro. Yula crece en esta tierra prohibida, y aún así se ríe, se enamora y se maquilla para estar más atractiva. Se atreve a soñar con salir de allí algún día.
Something Better to Come
Producer
Se trata de un viaje personal extraordinario de más de trece años por uno de los lugares más inhóspitos del mundo. Yula, de 11 años, vive en uno de los lugares más desolados de la Tierra: el Svalka, el vertedero más grande de Europa, a veinte kilómetros del centro de Moscú. Rodeada de alambre de espino y de guardias, la zona está fuertemente vigilada para mantener fuera a los intrusos. Pero en el vertedero vive un grupo de personas en una pequeña sociedad sin ley. Estas personas forman la familia más cercana de Yula; aquí vive su vida, y es aquí de donde brotará su futuro. Yula crece en esta tierra prohibida, y aún así se ríe, se enamora y se maquilla para estar más atractiva. Se atreve a soñar con salir de allí algún día.
Something Better to Come
Writer
Se trata de un viaje personal extraordinario de más de trece años por uno de los lugares más inhóspitos del mundo. Yula, de 11 años, vive en uno de los lugares más desolados de la Tierra: el Svalka, el vertedero más grande de Europa, a veinte kilómetros del centro de Moscú. Rodeada de alambre de espino y de guardias, la zona está fuertemente vigilada para mantener fuera a los intrusos. Pero en el vertedero vive un grupo de personas en una pequeña sociedad sin ley. Estas personas forman la familia más cercana de Yula; aquí vive su vida, y es aquí de donde brotará su futuro. Yula crece en esta tierra prohibida, y aún así se ríe, se enamora y se maquilla para estar más atractiva. Se atreve a soñar con salir de allí algún día.
Something Better to Come
Director
Se trata de un viaje personal extraordinario de más de trece años por uno de los lugares más inhóspitos del mundo. Yula, de 11 años, vive en uno de los lugares más desolados de la Tierra: el Svalka, el vertedero más grande de Europa, a veinte kilómetros del centro de Moscú. Rodeada de alambre de espino y de guardias, la zona está fuertemente vigilada para mantener fuera a los intrusos. Pero en el vertedero vive un grupo de personas en una pequeña sociedad sin ley. Estas personas forman la familia más cercana de Yula; aquí vive su vida, y es aquí de donde brotará su futuro. Yula crece en esta tierra prohibida, y aún así se ríe, se enamora y se maquilla para estar más atractiva. Se atreve a soñar con salir de allí algún día.
Love and Rubbish
Director of Photography
Love and Rubbish
Producer
Love and Rubbish
Screenplay
Love and Rubbish
Director
Warsaw Battle 1920 in 3D
Editor
Warsaw Battle 1920 in 3D
Director of Photography
Warsaw Battle 1920 in 3D
Director
The Officer's Wife
Director of Photography
In an old safe, a man discovers his grandmother’s memoirs, old photos of an army officer and a mysterious postcard that link to a concealed crime; the Katyn Forest massacre. Weaving interviews with bold animation, The Officer's Wife explores the collision of truth, justice and memory in a family tragedy.
Faces of Homelessness
Director of Photography
Faces of Homelessness
Director
Stone Silence
Director of Photography
The Orange Sun
Director
After the second round of the 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine, millions of people went out on the streets. During this revolution, there was a genuine solidarity between people from different levels of the society, from the cities and the countryside. Although these people were brought up in a Soviet society where every protest against the authorities was a danger to one's life, they were so disappointed by what came after the collapse of the Soviet Union that they went out to the streets, faced the authorities and made the orange revolution possible. The film explores motives for taking part in the Ukrainian revolution, their view of the world, living-condition and hope for the future.
Los Niños de la Estación Leningradsky
Translator
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain an estimated four million children have found themselves living on the streets in the former countries of the Soviet Union. In the streets of Moscow alone there are over 30,000 surviving in this manner at the present time. The makers of the documentary film concentrated on a community of homeless children living hand to mouth in the Moscow train station Leningradsky. Eight-year-old Sasha, eleven-year-old Kristina, thirteen-year-old Misha and ten-year-old Andrej all dream of living in a communal home.
Los Niños de la Estación Leningradsky
Director of Photography
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain an estimated four million children have found themselves living on the streets in the former countries of the Soviet Union. In the streets of Moscow alone there are over 30,000 surviving in this manner at the present time. The makers of the documentary film concentrated on a community of homeless children living hand to mouth in the Moscow train station Leningradsky. Eight-year-old Sasha, eleven-year-old Kristina, thirteen-year-old Misha and ten-year-old Andrej all dream of living in a communal home.
Los Niños de la Estación Leningradsky
Screenplay
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain an estimated four million children have found themselves living on the streets in the former countries of the Soviet Union. In the streets of Moscow alone there are over 30,000 surviving in this manner at the present time. The makers of the documentary film concentrated on a community of homeless children living hand to mouth in the Moscow train station Leningradsky. Eight-year-old Sasha, eleven-year-old Kristina, thirteen-year-old Misha and ten-year-old Andrej all dream of living in a communal home.
Los Niños de la Estación Leningradsky
Producer
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain an estimated four million children have found themselves living on the streets in the former countries of the Soviet Union. In the streets of Moscow alone there are over 30,000 surviving in this manner at the present time. The makers of the documentary film concentrated on a community of homeless children living hand to mouth in the Moscow train station Leningradsky. Eight-year-old Sasha, eleven-year-old Kristina, thirteen-year-old Misha and ten-year-old Andrej all dream of living in a communal home.
Los Niños de la Estación Leningradsky
Director
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain an estimated four million children have found themselves living on the streets in the former countries of the Soviet Union. In the streets of Moscow alone there are over 30,000 surviving in this manner at the present time. The makers of the documentary film concentrated on a community of homeless children living hand to mouth in the Moscow train station Leningradsky. Eight-year-old Sasha, eleven-year-old Kristina, thirteen-year-old Misha and ten-year-old Andrej all dream of living in a communal home.
Al. Tribute to Albert Maysles
Producer
Al. Tribute to Albert Maysles
Director of Photography
Al. Tribute to Albert Maysles
Director
A Railway Station Song
Producer
A poignant image of the environment of the homeless. The film is a documentary record of the everyday life of Russian children, small refugees from orphanages who chose a street or a railway station for their home.
A Railway Station Song
Director of Photography
A poignant image of the environment of the homeless. The film is a documentary record of the everyday life of Russian children, small refugees from orphanages who chose a street or a railway station for their home.