Hanna Polak

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 Polaks 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 TrueFalse Film Festival and FIPA Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels In 2006 Polaks 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