Out My Window: Interactive Views from Global Highrise

The concept of this project is to use documentary as an attempt to "help re-invent our cities at their edges....based in intensive community collaboration, married to an international vision for what documentary can be." Delivered entirely online, the work features stories of migration, globalisation, community action, and art as a transformative tool. It is a journey about the experiences of those who live in concrete-slab residential towers (highrises). "Meet remarkable highrise residents who harness the human spirit - and the power of community - to resurrect meaning amid the ruins of modernism." Out My Window features 49 stories from 13 cities, told in 13 languages. Amongst the portraits are that of: a 14-year old girl living in a dismal housing project in Chicago, in the United States; a mother in Istanbul, whose family has migrated to Germany; a Cambodian survivor of the Khmer Rouge who sleeps in the unfinished luxury highrise where she also works as a construction labourer; a 37-year-old Czech Republic artist who grew up in a vast building in Prague; and an illustrator in Beirut named Mazen who stands on his balcony and remembers how he improvised music on his trumpet in counterpoint to exploding bombs - an act of defiance - during the Israeli bombings of 2006.

Click here to watch a trailer of the documentary. When the film was launched in October, visitors to the HIGHRISE website could look into the windows of a virtual apartment block. The viewer could pass his or her mouse over each window and click to look inside. The residents who are part of the documentary speak in monologues; there is no omniscient narrator or interviewer. Those who saw something interesting in the collage-like layering of photos could click again to investigate a painting on the wall or a statue, just as you might do when you are a guest in someone’s home. The website has added an education section to the site, and a 'participate' section, which allows visitors to submit their own highrise photos and stories. Both are available through buttons at the bottom navigation bar. Click here, select explore, and scroll down to access these options.

Migration, Globalisation.

The project springs from the Tower Renewal project, which the mayor of Toronto, Canada, launched in an effort to revitalise and restore Toronto's aging highrises while making them more energy-efficient. Toronto has more than 1,000 buildings of 12 stories or more. NFB filmmaker Katerina Cizek said, "You see the lack of humanity in the physical structure - then you see people...living, what happens in between the cracks in the concrete."

According to its producer, HIGHRISE-OUT MY WINDOW has won an Emmy Award, the One World Media Award, the Bakaforum international education award, among others.