Coming to theatres today, Friday, May 22: SOMETHING BETTER TO COME
Hanna Polak’s longitudinal portrait of a Russian girl made its debut at IDFA last year, where it claimed a special jury award. Other festival screenings have included True/False, ZagrebDox, Documenta Madrid, Doc.fest Munich, and Docs Against Gravity.
Polak first encounters her protagonist, Yula, at the age of ten. She seems unremarkable, save for the place she calls home: the Svalka, the largest landfill in Europe, located just outside of Moscow. Curious to understand how people could live in such an environment, Polak tenaciously returned periodically over the course of fourteen years, tracking Yula, her mother, and the loose-knit community that shared the unorthodox environs, and in the process allows the viewer to witness a girl grow into a young woman. Though at a decided disadvantage, having grown up with virtually nothing and struggling with the same factors that plagued her mother, Yula nevertheless dreams of escaping the trap of poverty. Polak crafts an impressionistic, indelible study of adolescence and of a hardscrabble existence.
what (not) to doc 