Participatory Documentary and the City_Final Report

Highrise
National Film Board Canada
Screenshot from Out my Window NFB
High Rise is a multi-year documentary research project into the human experience
in suburban high rise neighbourhoods. It’s not a traditional documentary production
rather an online platform composed of many smaller documentary projects. Over
the years the work has taken many forms, web-documentaries, live presentations,
installations, workshops, films and online participatory projects. The project was
developed at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) an organisation that has been
at the forefront of documentary innovation for decades and this work by director
Katerina Cizek continues this rich tradition, with High Rise having won numerous
awards in recent years. The work integrates personal stories from residents around
the globe with academic and architectural research into high rise neighbourhoods.
High Rise is one of the key projects in this research and I spoke with the director
Katerina Cizek about the history of the project, here is the transcript of the interview.