Circle, the coaching platform for girls and gender-expansive filmmakers, is shifting into XR and immersive media with a brand new worldwide program developed alongside Onassis ONX. Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentarian Katerina Cizek has been appointed head of research for the initiative.
“Circle Expanded Orbit” will run Nov. 21–26, in Athens, bringing collectively creators working throughout XR, blended actuality, VR, AR, AI and game-based storytelling. Purposes are open to filmmakers, artists and multidisciplinary storytellers working alone or in pairs; the deadline is July 23, with shortlisted candidates invited to interview in late August.
Onassis ONX – the Onassis Basis’s platform for artwork and superior applied sciences, with operations in Athens and New York – is co-organising this system. The partnership aligns Circle’s peer-driven expertise improvement mannequin with Onassis ONX’s concentrate on digital and immersive inventive expression.
Cizek co-founded the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab, the place she serves as creative director. As head of research, she is going to form this system’s pedagogical and artistic framework.
“I am honored to join Circle, and to expand the orbit of remarkable creators into the myriad of creative and critical possibilities of emergent tech and media. We are so honored to collaborate with Onassis ONX at this inaugural event, to bridge many worlds. The learnings in our circle will flow in all directions, as women and gender-expansive creators too bring urgent and important perspectives to this field,” Cizek stated.
Based in 2018, Circle has labored with greater than 200 filmmakers throughout over 50 international locations. “As storytelling is being transformed by immersive and other emergent media, we want to ensure that women and gender-expansive creators are not just participating in that transformation, but leading it. With Circle Expanded Orbit, and with Kat Cizek guiding our pedagogical and creative vision, we are opening a new creative space – one where we can explore new media and technology in service of authors and where the future of our art can be imagined collectively,” stated Biljana Tutorov, the initiative’s founder and program director.
Prodromos Tsiavos, head of digital and innovation on the Onassis Basis and Onassis ONX, added: “At Onassis ONX, we are interested not in technology as an end in itself, but as a means to expand artistic expression, critical thinking, and new forms of immersion. Through initiatives like Expanded Orbit, we connect local practices with global networks, opening pathways for artists to develop, circulate, and resonate internationally. In this context, supporting women and gender-expansive creators is essential to shaping a more inclusive and forward-looking field.”
