Hanna Polak’s Documentaries of Russia’s Lost Souls

Among the increasing numbers of Polish female doc makers winning awards at international festivals since the 2010s, Hanna Polak stands out as a successful director whose progress has been both circuitous and exceptional. This essay tracks how Polak became a documentarian during the years she spent in post-Soviet Moscow, making films that initially served and then eclipsed her charity work for homeless children in the capital and squatters forced to work and live on the city’s svalka, the largest garbage dump in Europe. Focusing on the two films that garnered Polak an international reputation—the documentary short Children from the Leningrad Station (2004) and the full-length Something Better to Come (2014)—I compare how the subjects in these films determine the footage she accrues; the plots that she shapes; her shot choices and use of monologues and voice-overs; and the directorial modalities that she embraces in relation to her protagonists and their very different contexts.

Duke Scholars

Author Beth Holmgren Slavic & Eurasian Studies