GOOD TALK WITH POLA RAPAPORT

Pola Rapaport is a New York-based writer, director, and editor, and voting member of the Oscars. Her recent doc short, "PANORAMIC VIEW: Portrait of the Artist Francine Tint" premiered at DOC NYC in 2025.

Her last feature documentary, ADDICTED TO LIFE was a multi-award winner. It portrayed Paralympic star Marieke Vervoort and her plan to live her life to the maximum before she died by euthanasia. Rapaport’s earlier films, all prize winners, include: “Nadia Comāneci: The Gymnast and the Dictator” (2016), “Hair: Let the Sun Shine In”, (2007); “Writer of O,” (2004), “Family Secret,” (2000) (winner, Grand Prix of the French authors’ society), “Blind Light,” (1998) starring Edie Falco, and “Broken Meat,”(1990).

Rapaport has been a Guggenheim, NYFA & Yaddo Fellow and an Emmy nominee. 
Since 2017, she has been on faculty at NYU Tisch Film School. She is a dual citizen of the USA and France.

Rapaport founded the production company Blinding Light, Inc. with her husband, Director of Photography Wolfgang Held, ASC, who has collaborated with her on many of her films.

Expertise
In the five-years of production and editing on ADDICTED TO LIFE, I learned an enormous amount about the field of medical aid-in-dying in the USA and abroad, which I share with audiences. The personal aspect of the film, in capturing the remarkable character of Paralympian Marieke Vervoort, brings the ethical, emotional, and political aspects of this controversial topic into the hearts and minds of its viewers.

Speaking History
New York University, lecturer in the department of Undergraduate Film and TV, 2017- present.

Speaker at educational presentations of ADDICTED TO LIFE: 
Brown University, Warren Alpert Medical School
New York University Tisch School of the Arts
Pratt Institute
Worcester State University
University of Massachusetts at Lowell

Festivals where ADDICTED TO LIFE has won awards, with speaking opportunities:
Chelsea Film Festival, NY
Portland Oregon Film Festival
Munich DOK.Fest
BOSIFEST, Belgrade, Serbia
Nagano FICTS Sports Festival, Japan

Guest Lecturer: 
Montclair State University
School of Visual Arts