The Modern Audience Conference 2024

Katerina Cizek is an influential figure in international media, with over 25 years of experience as a Peabody- and Emmy-winning documentarian, author, producer, and senior leader working with collective processes and emergent technologies. She is the co-founder, research scientist, and artistic director of the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab. She is lead author (with Uricchio) of the world’s first comprehensive book on co-creating media, Collective Wisdom, published by MIT Press in 2022. For over a decade, Cizek worked as a documentary director at the National Film Board of Canada, transforming the organization into a world leader of digital storytelling with the projects HIGHRISE and Filmmaker-in-Residence.

Screenwriter and Story Coordinator at CD PROJEKT RED since 2015. Worked on The Witcher 3 expansion “Blood and Wine” and on Cyberpunk 2077. Teaches a course “Dramaturgy and Narration for Game Development” at the Warsaw Film School, mentors aspiring writers as part of the “Girls in the Game” program. Published a novel entitled “The Seven Glasses” (in Polish). Loves traveling the world and staying in with her wife and two cats, in equal parts. Trekked the Swedish Lapland last year because of a horror film she saw that was set there. Her mantras are: “There’s no such thing as a dialogue draft” and “Writing is rewriting.”

Bilal Zafar is Stand Up Comedian, Actor, Writer and Twitch Streamer. He has been nominated For Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe and appeared on BBC1, BBC2, Channel 4 and BBC Radio 4. During lockdown, Bilal began to stream on Twitch where he was able to create an ongoing part improvised, surreal, immersive comedy soap opera with the character of an unhinged football manager.