{{Short description|Canadian filmmaker and web documentarian}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2018}} [[File:Katerina Cizek and Gerry Flahive 2014.jpg|220px|thumb|Cizek and producer Gerry Flahive with their Peabody award]] '''Katerina Cizek''' (born 1969) is a Canadian documentary director and a pioneer in digital documentaries. She is the Artistic Director, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
==''Highrise''== {{main|Highrise (documentary)}} From 2008-2015,<ref>{{cite news|last1=Budds|first1=Diana|title=7 Years In The Making, This Documentary Reveals The Untold Stories Of High-Rise Buildings|url=http://www.fastcodesign.com/3047581/a-7-year-documentary-reveals-the-untold-stories-of-high-rise-buildings|accessdate=22 June 2015|publisher=Fast Company, CoDesign}}</ref> Cizek directed the [[National Film Board of Canada]]'s ''[[Highrise (documentary)|Highrise]]'' series on life in residential skyscrapers, including the 2010 world's first 360 degree [[web documentary]] ''Out My Window'', winner of the inaugural IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling at the [[International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam]] and an [[International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences|International Digital Emmy]] for best digital program: non-fiction,<ref name="Brooks">{{cite news|last=Brooks |first=Brian |title=IDFA Opener "Position Among the Stars" Takes Top Festival Prize |url=http://www.indiewire.com/article/2010/11/26/idfa_opener_position_among_the_stars_takes_top_festival_prize |accessdate=29 November 2010 |newspaper=[[Indie Wire]] |date=26 November 2010 }}{{dead link|date=May 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name=cbcemmy>{{cite news|title=NFB's Highrise web project wins Digital Emmy|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/nfb-s-highrise-web-project-wins-digital-emmy-1.1019717|access-date=4 April 2011|newspaper=[[CBC News]]|date=4 April 2011}}</ref> and the 2011 webdoc ''One Millionth Tower'', which lets users explore a highrise complex in [[3D computer graphics|3D]] [[virtual space]], as Toronto residents re-imagine their neighborhood.<ref name=Watercutter>{{cite news|last=Watercutter|first=Angela|title=Premiere: One Millionth Tower High-Rise Documentary Takes Format to New Heights|url=https://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/11/one-millionth-tower/|accessdate=29 November 2011|newspaper=[[Wired News]]|date=5 November 2011}}</ref><ref name=Gee>{{cite news|last=Gee|first=Marcus|title=Aging apartment towers can be humanized|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/aging-apartment-towers-can-be-humanized/article2263989/|accessdate=8 December 2011|newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]]|date=7 December 2011}}</ref>
''A Short History of the Highrise'' is an interactive documentary that "explores the 2,500-year global history of vertical living and issues of social equality in an increasingly urbanized world." The centerpiece of the project is four short films by Cizek—''Mud'', ''Concrete'' and ''Glass''—with images culled from ''The New York Times'''s visual archives, that are "intended to evoke a chapter in a storybook, with rhyming narration and photographs brought to life with intricate animation." The fourth short film, ''Home'', is being made with user-submitted images. The interactive site will incorporate the films and also offer additional archival materials, text and microgames. It premiered as part of the [[Film Society of Lincoln Center]]’s [[New York Film Festival]] Convergence program on September 30, 2013 and online at NYTimes.com in October.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/08/28/opinion/highrise-trailer.html?_r=0|title=A Short History of the Highrise: An interactive documentary by Katerina Cizek launching in October|work=The New York Times|accessdate=9 September 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite press release | url=http://www.canadianarchitect.com/news/immersive-multi-media-series-on-residential-highrise-buildings-to-debut-at-new-york-film-festival/1002566732/ | title=Immersive multi-media series on residential highrise buildings to debut at New York Film Festival | publisher=Canadian Architect | date=1 September 2013 | accessdate=9 September 2013}}</ref> In April 2014, Cizek received a [[Peabody Award]] for ''A Short History of the Highrise'',<ref name="Kennedy">{{cite news | url=https://globalnews.ca/news/1245951/orphan-black-nfb-win-peabody-awards/ | title='Orphan Black,' NFB win Peabody Awards | work=[[Global News]] | date=2 April 2014 | accessdate=3 April 2014 | author=Kennedy, John R.}}</ref> followed by a [[News & Documentary Emmy Award]] in the fall of 2014.<ref name="Cummins">{{cite news|url=https://playbackonline.ca/2014/10/01/cbc-nfb-win-intl-emmy-awards/|title=NFB, Herman's House win Emmy Awards|last=Cummins|first=Juliana|work=Playback|accessdate=19 October 2014}}</ref>
Cizek collaborated with the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]'s OpenDocLab unit to develop the final production in the ''Highrise'' project called ''Universe Within''. As part of MIT’s Visiting Artists Program, she worked with scholars and apartment residents to ask how new technological forms are reshaping personal lives in suburban high-rise communities.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://realscreen.com/2013/05/17/nfb-filmmaker-named-mit-visiting-artist-2/#ixzz2WDfgT9Ra|title=NFB filmmaker named MIT visiting artist|last=Ng-See-Quan|first=Danielle|date=17 May 2013|work=Reelscreen|publisher=Brunico Communications|accessdate=14 June 2013}}</ref>
''Universe Within'' is the final iteration of NFB Highrise, directed by Cizek and co-created with Digital Agency Secret Location and Dr. Deborah Cowen and Dr. Emily Paradis. On March 8, 2016, ''Universe Within'' received the award for Best Original Interactive Production Produced for Digital Media at the [[4th Canadian Screen Awards]].<ref name="Mullen">{{cite news|url=http://povmagazine.com/blog/view/first-wave-of-documentary-non-fiction-factual-canadian-screen-award-winners|title=First Wave of Documentary/Non-Fiction/Factual Canadian Screen Award Winners|last=Mullen|first=Pat|date=9 March 2016|work=[[Point of View (magazine)|Point of View]]|accessdate=10 March 2016|archive-date=20 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200820105930/http://povmagazine.com/blog/view/first-wave-of-documentary-non-fiction-factual-canadian-screen-award-winners|url-status=dead}}</ref> At the [[2016 Webby Awards]], ''Universe Within'' received the Webby for Online Film & Video/Best Use of Interactive Video.<ref name="Wong">{{cite news|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/webby-wins-2016-1.3553650|title=Webby Awards 2016 winners include The Weeknd, the NFB|last=Wong|first=Jessica|date=26 April 2016|work=CBC News|accessdate=10 May 2016}}</ref>
==''Filmmaker-in-Residence''== Prior to working on ''Highrise'', Cizek directed an NFB [[crossmedia]] documentary project about life inside Toronto’s [[St. Michael's Hospital (Toronto)|St. Michael’s Hospital]]. Called ''Filmmaker-in-Residence'', it garnered a [[Webby Award]] for Best Documentary Series.<ref name="Dixon">{{cite news|last=Dixon|first=Guy|title=NFB doc glimpses into immigrants' high-rise world |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/movies/nfb-doc-glimpses-into-immigrants-high-rise-world/article1858843/|accessdate=17 January 2011|newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]]|date=13 January 2011}}</ref><ref name="Alumni">{{cite web|last=Martin|first=James|title=A DIFFERENT KIND OF FILMMAKING|url=https://www.mcgill.ca/news/2009/winter/alumnotes/cizek/|work=Alumni Profile|publisher=[[McGill University]]|accessdate=17 January 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090528025829/http://www.mcgill.ca/news/2009/winter/alumnotes/cizek/|archive-date=28 May 2009|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref>
==Other credits== Prior to joining the NFB, her films included ''[[Seeing is Believing: Handicams, Human Rights and the News]]'', co-directed with [[Peter Wintonick]].
==Research and teaching== She is currently heading up a new research and production initiative at MIT Open Documentary Lab. Cizek and NFB producer [[Gerry Flahive]] collaborated on [[academic research]] with urbanist Roger Kiel on how cities are changing, with the Global Suburbanisms program at [[York University]].<ref name="Dixon"/> 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.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://news.artsci.utoronto.ca/all-news/how-u-of-t-researchers-helped-shape-highrise-nfbs-interactive-documentary/ | title=How U of T researchers helped shape HIGHRISE, the NFB's interactive documentary | work=Arts & Science News | date=12 June 2015 | publisher=University of Toronto | accessdate=26 April 2018 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Cizek is a long-time teacher at the annual ESoDoc workshops. She teaches [[new media]] approaches to documentary creation.<ref name="Scrivener">{{cite news|last=Scrivener|first=Leslie |title=Online, a window on the world|url=https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/876179--online-a-window-on-the-world|accessdate=24 November 2010|newspaper=[[Toronto Star]]|date=15 October 2010}}</ref>
==Personal life== Cizek was born in 1969<ref>{{cite web |title=Katerina Cizek (19)|url=https://www.nfb.ca/directors/katerina-cizek/|publisher=[[National Film Board of Canada]]|access-date=2 June 2025}}</ref> in [[Waterloo, Ontario]]. The daughter of Czech immigrants, she now lives in the [[Roncesvalles, Toronto|Roncesvalles]] neighbourhood in Toronto. Cizek has a degree in [[anthropology]] from [[McGill University]] in Montreal and worked as an independent filmmaker before joining the [[National Film Board of Canada]], where she worked as a filmmaker-in-residence. Her father [[Jiří Čížek]] taught [[quantum physics]] at the [[University of Waterloo]].<ref name="Scrivener"/> He is known for introducing [[Coupled cluster]] theory.<ref>J. Čížek, ''On the Correlation Problem in Atomic and Molecular Systems. Calculation of Wavefunction Components in Ursell-Type Expansion Using Quantum-Field Theoretical Methods'', The Journal of Chemical Physics '''45''', 50 (1966)</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *{{Twitter|katciz}} *[http://dmau.com/participatory-documentary/interview-katarina-cizek/ Interview with Katerina Cizek] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407073241/http://dmau.com/participatory-documentary/interview-katarina-cizek/ |date=7 April 2014 }}, Digital Media Architecture Urbanism, Amsterdam *[https://opendoclab.mit.edu/presents/kat-cizek/ Katerina Cizek], Open Documentary Lab, MIT *[https://web.archive.org/web/20140410030204/http://arts.mit.edu/artists/cizek/ Katerina Cizek], Visiting Artists Program, MIT
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cizek, Katerina}} [[Category:1969 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Canadian film educators]] [[Category:Canadian women film directors]] [[Category:Canadian documentary film directors]] [[Category:National Film Board of Canada people]] [[Category:McGill University alumni]] [[Category:People from Waterloo, Ontario]] [[Category:Canadian people of Czech descent]] [[Category:News & Documentary Emmy Award winners]] [[Category:Canadian digital artists]] [[Category:Women digital artists]] [[Category:Digital media educators]] [[Category:Peabody Award winners]] [[Category:Web designers]] [[Category:21st-century Canadian women artists]] [[Category:Canadian graphic designers]] [[Category:Canadian women graphic designers]] [[Category:Canadian educators]] [[Category:Canadian women educators]] [[Category:Canadian women documentary filmmakers]]