Highrise director katerina cizek is an emmywinning documentarymaker working across many media platforms. Universe within is created by katerina cizek, the director of highrise, in collaboration with an academic team at university of toronto, headed up by drs. Opinion a short history of the highrise the new york. The new interactive documentary, part of the highrise series produced by the national film board of canada, makes its u. Interact with the new york times fourpart documentary, a short history of the highrise. You can watch a video trailer for a short history of the highrise up top and part 1 of cizeks film below that. Our third annual currents new media festival was held in santa fe, new mexico, usa june 22july 8. Talk by katerina cizek interactive documentary filmmaking concordia university, canada description of talk. At mit, artist katerina cizek collaborated with the open documentary lab to develop the newest phase of her project, highrise. Cizek is a longtime teacher at the annual esodoc workshops. Films directed by katerina cizek available for online viewing on nfb. The first batch of fellows begins this fall and among them is filmmakermedia maker katerina cizek, whose groundbreaking work with the nfb includes filmmakerinresidence and the aforementioned highrise, both webbased interactive documentaries.
Highrise, which explores vertical living in suburbs around the world. Interactive digital media have had an impact on the logics of production, exhibition, and reception of traditional audiovisual documentaries. Highrise is an nfb multimedia collaborative documentary experiment running over several years, directed by katerina cizek and produced by gerry flahive. She teaches new media approaches to documentary creation. The film is narrated by singersongwriter feist, and is directed by katerina cizek in collaboration with the new york times. This highrise storyspace installation extends the 360 web documentary out my window into the largerthanlifesize physical environment. How popup books inspired the spectacular short history.
In the first installment, mud traces the historical roots of the residential highrise, from the biblical tower of babel to the tenement buildings of new york. Interact with the new york times fourpart documentary, a. Recurring examples of this technical merging were the many docs released by news entities, such as katerina cizeks highrise project produced by the national film board of canada and published with the times. She realized the acclaimed nfb filmmakerinresidence program, winner of a webby award, a banff rocky award, a canadian new media award, among others. Director katerina cizek skitters throughout history and all over the globe. Henry david thoreau once noted that every apartment in which man dwells should be lofty enough to create some obscurity where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters. According to the short documentary published by new york times a short history of the highrises by katerina cizek, the. Katerina cizek and the nfb highrise team worked with interactive artist priamgivord and the cfc media lab to take us on a journey into the centre of a spatialized cinematic experience where transitions, dissolves, cuts, and closeups take on more than lifesize proportions and are felt viscerally. In the highrise project at the national film board of canada, an agency of the federal government of canada, katerina cizek and associates worked for over five years in a privately owned highrise in suburban toronto there are over a thousand such highrises in the city. But this year shes attending the tiff docs conference with a new project. From local projects at the inner city health unit, to global ones, fir partners media with medicine in innovative ways. Katerina cizek is a twotime emmywinning director, cocreator at the forefront of digital media. She is the artistic director and executive producer of a new initiative at the mit open documentary lab called co. Katerina cizek photo by jaime hogge, courtesy national film board of canada.
New highrise documentary takes form to new heights nfb blog. Collectively, the projects are intended to realize the highrise vision. Out my window, a webbased multimedia project from director katerina cizek and the documentary collective highrise, provides a neat illustration of just how malleable the language of. Michaels hospital, working with partners on the frontlines.
Cizeks work takes the documentary form to another level by exploring new approaches to form and. Manifesto for interventionist media because art is a. I would drive by them, without much thought, and dread the elevator when i actually had to go inside. Toronto is at the very heart of these conversations, says highrise director katerina cizek, because of the proximity between its arts and technology sectors. In this emerging context, interactive documentaries are a. The highriseout my window project explores our urban planet, through eyes of people who look out onto the world through highrise windows. She is teaming up with partners at the frontlines doctors, nurses and patients to create collaborative media and to fuel social action. See the complete profile on linkedin and discover katerinas connections and jobs at similar companies. Digital lives in the global highrise is online now. Katerina cizek is an emmyaward winning documentary director. How storytellers and technologists work together is a key step in progressing the field of interactive documentaries. Recently, she was listed as reelscreens 2011 trailblazers in nonfiction, alongside wim wenders and the channel 4 commissioning team.
Katerina cizek and the nfb highrise team worked with interactive. More recently, urban documentarians like jonas bendiksen the places we live, 2008, katerina cizek the highrise project, 2009present, and kolja mensing and florian thalhofer ter stock, 2005, and ter shop, 2007 have adeptly combined audio, video, and 3d photography within proprietary, webbased interfaces to provide viewers with. Highrise is a multiyear, multimedia documentary project about life in residential highrises, directed by katerina cizek and produced by gerry flahive for the national film board of canada in partnership with the new york times. Transmedia digital humanities research guides at new. Katerina cizek is a documentarynew media maker and the national film board of canadas filmmakerinresidence at an innercity hospital. The towers in the world and the world in the towers explores humanitys long history of vertical living and then takes you on a 10stop tour of highrises around the world this is the book adaptation of the emmy awardwinning interactive documentary created by katerina cizek, produced by the national film board of canada and the new york times. Katerina jakova lazarova head of software development. Katerina cizek on the final chapter of highrise point of.
Deborah cowen and emily paradis, along with one of canadas leading digital agencies, secret location. Highrise is a multiyear, multimedia documentary project about life in residential highrises, directed by katerina cizek and produced by gerry flahive for the national film board of canada nfb. In this pilot project, katerina cizek is filmmakerinresidence at st. Highrise is a multiyear, multimedia, collaborative documentary project about the human experience in global vertical suburbs. An innovative storyteller who works across many media platforms, katerina cizekis currently directing the national film board of canada s highrise, a multimedia project on life in residential skyscrapers in suburbs around the world. The form offers new ways of considering the role of the storyteller in the world katerina cizek highrise. Check out the most commonly built form of the last century. Courtney sheehan writes about katerina cizek and new media. When katerina cizek started highrisea webbased documentary seven years in the makingshe didnt know exactly what form it would take, only that she wanted to use the coolest technology out. Its impossible to talk about the interactive documentary revolution without mentioning katerina cizek, the emmy awardwinning director of the nfb s ongoing highrise project. Sheffield docfest is the perfect platform for anyone with an interest in interactive, virtual reality and factual content. Im leading a cocreation studio at the mit open documentary lab, she says over breakfast not far from the downtown.
Digital media pioneer katerina cizek is a hometown girl in toronto, so the toronto international film festival is always on her calendar. The meeting spaces and participatory media workshops that were created in. Katerina cizek is a czechcanadian documentarymaker, working across many media platforms. The currents festival explored the role of technology and the diverse applications of new media in the arts. The material is very different in each projectthere are different people and different technologies we use. So we decided to do a skype interview with her, and asked her to tell us more about highrises plans for the future.
Transmedia storyteller katerina cizek has just outdone herself, with help from the new york times. The project, which began in 2009, includes five web documentariesthe thousandth tower, out my window, one millionth tower, a short history of the highrise and universe within. Katerina cizek, highrises director at canadians nfb, was supposed to come to idocs to present in person all those exciting news but unfortunately she had to cancel her european trip. Digital citizenship, which investigates how new communication and media technologies are reshaping the personal lives, political practices. Katerina cizek cocreated a comparable crossdisciplinary project under the national film board of canadas highrise umbrella, with the digital documentary universe within 2015. Cizek collaborated closely with an academic team at university of toronto on the final iteration of highrise, on a joint book and documentary project about digital citizenship in the global suburbs. Her work has documented the digital revolution, and has itself become part of the movement. View katerina jakova lazarovas profile on linkedin, the worlds largest professional community. She partnered with two academics at the university of toronto, the critical geographer, deborah cowen, and emily paradis, a socialwork scholar specializing in. According to the short documentary published by new york times a short history of the highrises by katerina cizek, the historical analysis of highrise begins back in 2500 bc.
In the last century, the highrise a common contemporary word for buildings 12 or more stories high became a common tool, made of concrete, to counter urban sprawl and social inequality. With interactive elements, digital documentaries are. A short history of the highrise is an interactive documentary that explores the 2,500year global history of vertical living and issues of social equality in an increasingly urbanized world. The projects on this playlist mark the convergence of interactive documentary and digital journalism. Docfest prides itself in supporting and nurturing new talent. New highrise documentary takes form to new heights.
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