Katerina Cizek is an innovative documentary storyteller who works across many media platforms. She’s currently the director of the National Film Board of Canada’s multi-year project entitled HIGHRISE, which examines life inside residential skyscrapers in suburbs around the world. Since it launched in 2009, HIGHRISE has generated interactive documentaries, mobile productions, live presentations, installations and films that have garnered Emmys, a Peabody, Webby Awards and recognition from the World Press Photo and IDFA Doc Lab, among others. On June 2, 2015, Kat and the NFB released the latest and final HIGHRISE project, “Universe Within,” that explores people’s digital lives online. […]

Presented as a “live screening,” Katerina Cizek’s Web-based interactive piece, HIGHRISE/Out My Window, was a mesmerizing highlight of the “Expanding Documentary” exhibition at the 2010 edition of IDFA. Now, nearly three years later, Cizek is poised to extend her artistic exploration of urban living to the Web pages of The New York Times. Peeking out from its paywall, the Grey Lady has nabbed the director and her National Film Board of Canada producers to collaborate on a forward-thinking op-ed doc series on the subject of vertical housing. Set to launch in the fall, it consists of four short documentaries, the […]

In the tenth part of Filmmaker‘s interview project with prominent figures from the world of transmedia, conducted through the MIT Open Documentary Lab, Katerina Cizek gives her take on the way digital technology is shaping contemporary storytelling. Cizek is currently the director of the NFB’s HIGHRISE project, exploring new forms and new approaches to content. HIGHRISE is a multi-year, many media series of projects. You can see it at highrise.nfb.ca and her previous project Filmmaker-in-Residence at filmmaker.nfb.ca. For an introduction to this entire series, and links to all the installments so far, check out “Should Filmmakers Learn to Code,” by MIT […]