POLA RAPAPORT is the owner of the media corporation, Binding Light, Inc. Rapaport is a writer, director, and editor of many award-winning films, producer of art-related video content, and university professor at her alma mater, New York University.

Her newest documentary, "PANORAMIC VIEW: Portrait of the Artist Francine Tint” (2025, 21 minutes) had its world premiere at the Newport Beach (CA) International Film Festival in October, 2025, and East Coast premiere at DOC NYC in November 2025.

Rapaport’s previous feature documentary, ADDICTED TO LIFE (2022, 84 minutes) had its world premiere at the Portland (Oregon) Film Festival, winning the Best of Women’s Voices Award. ADDICTED TO LIFE had its international premiere in 2023 at the Ostend Film Festival, followed by a European theatrical run. ADDICTED TO LIFE was completed with the support of many prestigious grants, including the 2022 NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theater finishing funds grant and production funding from NYSCA, The King Baudouin Foundation and the Flemish Film Fund (VAF).

Rapaport has worked as a freelance video producer for Christie’s International Auction House and other art-related clients. Through Christie’s she produced over a dozen art-related videos, specializing in proposal videos.

Documentary filmography: "PANORAMIC VIEW: Portrait of the Artist Francine Tint” (2025, 21 minutes); “ADDICTED TO LIFE”, (2022, 84 / 55 minutes) profiling the life of Belgian Paralympic star Marieke Vervoort and the paradoxical effect of her permission to have euthanasia; “Nadia Comaneci: The Gymnast and the Dictator” (2015), on the dubious relationship between the young “Perfect Ten” Olympic gymnast and Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu; “HAIR: Let the Sun Shine In” (2007), the definitive documentary on the hippie musical HAIR; “Writer of O” (2004), portrait of the elusive author of the erotic novel Story of O; “Family Secret” (2000), the story of discovering the filmmaker’s secret Romanian brother; “Blind Light” (1998), hybrid documentary/drama of a photographer’s peak experience in an Italian villa, starring Edie Falco; and “Broken Meat” (1990), B/W Sundance competition doc depicting the mad poet Alan Granville. Several of her films have been co-produced by Arte/France. “Family Secret” won the prestigious “Grand Prix de la S.C.A.M”, Best documentary on French television.

Rapaport is the editor of many feature documentaries, including “Museum Town” (SxSW), “A Woman Like Me” starring Lily Taylor (SxSW Directing Award) and Kathy Leichter’s festival favorite “Here One Day”. She consulted on Kirsten Johnson’s Oscar-short-listed “Cameraperson”.

Recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, two-time NYFA Fellow and Emmy nominee. Winner of grants and awards including: The New York State Council on the Arts, The King Baudouin Foundation and The KBF Hibiscus Fund, and The Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) in 2021 and 2022.

Fellow of Yaddo Artists’ Colony, 2019. She is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Film and Television, and teaches editing there.

Married to DP Wolfgang Held ASC, with whom she has often collaborated. Rapaport and Held co-own their production company, Blinding Light, Inc.

Dual citizen, USA/France. 

Post-graduate studies in Gestalt Psychotherapy at Gestalt Associates for Psychotherapy, NYC.

Founder of the BREAKING BARRIERS Workshops: An Experiential Workshop for the Creative Spirit.

For CV please email polarap@gmail.com