Director of HIGHRISE, National Film Board of Canada
Katerina Cizek is an Emmy-winning documentary director working across many new and old media platforms. Her work has documented the Digital Revolution and has itself become part of the movement. At the National Film Board of Canada, she has helped redefine the organization as one of the world’s leading digital content hubs, first with the Webby-winning Filmmaker-in-Residence (2006) and now, with the Emmy-winning HIGHRISE. Cizek’s earlier human rights documentary film projects have instigated criminal investigations, changed UN policies, and have screened as evidence at an International Criminal Tribunal. Cizek’s films include the Hampton-Prize winner Seeing is Believing: Handicams, Human Rights and the News (2002, co-directed with Peter Wintonick).
Trailblazers, Technologies and Truth(s)
Documentarians have always been at the forefront of innovation in form and content, as William Uricchio has so eloquently highlighted with Moments of Innovation. My playlist pays tribute to the digital documentaries that have attempted technological and creative firsts in search of the “truth”—both big and small. I have been challenged, inspired, or humbled by all on this playlist. So here’s a big shoutout to all those makers and collaborators that cut the trails with new techniques, new ideas, or simply new computer code to get at that poetic documentary “truth.”
