Looking Out for Something Better to Come: Interview with Director Hanna Polak

Hanna Polak was in the United States in December 2015 for a screening of Something Better to Come (2014) and The Children of Leningradsky (2004) at Yale University, where the interview was conducted. Polak's devastating documentary Something Better to Come swept through the festival circuit with force, winning a Special Jury Award at IDFA along with awards at over twenty other festivals. Shot illegally on a garbage dump just outside Moscow over the course of fourteen years, the film follows a girl named Yula from age 10 to 24, as she grows up doing the things that teenagers everywhere do—experimenting with her hair color and makeup, with cigarettes and alcohol—all while living in the most difficult of conditions.