The Documentary Podcast
Episodes
Delivering medical support to those in need
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you get vital medical support to those most in need?
The struggle of Israel's peace movement
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
wo years ago a group of Jewish and Palestinian peace activists stood almost alone in Israel in calling for a ceasefire, as Israel launched a massive o...
Anna-Karin Karlsson: Sunglasses made for icons
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From a quiet forest outside Stockholm to the world’s most glamorous runways, Swedish designer Anna-Karin Karlsson has built one of fashion’s most ...
Steel from shipwrecks
07 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years component parts of historic shipwrecks have started to disappear, with reports of mysterious vessels and scavengers floating around. T...
Reporting the Nigerian School Kidnappings
06 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
More than 300 children were kidnapped from a school in the Western Nigerian village of Papiri in November, but in the aftermath, accounts of the kidna...
Australia’s under-16 social media ban
06 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From 10 December, Australian children under 16 will be banned from most social media platforms including TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat. The ...
The mosque for Bangladesh’s transgender women
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the banks of the Brahmaputra River, a remote village in northern Bangladesh serves as a sanctuary for the hijra (transgender) community, a once-rev...
Made in Russia: The Kremlin’s economic rebrand
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How Moscow is working around international sanctions: promoting self-sustainability, elevating Russian brands and deepening trade with friendly countr...
From rocks to riches
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Meteorites are pieces of space rocks, which having survived a fiery journey through the atmosphere, land on the earth’s surface. No-one knows the ex...
Joana Vasconcelos: Mask of mirrors
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos is renowned for her large-scale sculptural pieces which have featured in galleries across the world. She has u...
Young and stateless
30 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to belong nowhere? Across the world, millions of people are denied citizenship and live without a country to call their own. It is e...
Ireland's new alcohol warning
30 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ireland has become the first country in the world to introduce labels linking alcohol with cancer and liver disease. Some producers began re-labelling...
What is the 'Shadow Fleet'?
29 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Around one fifth of the world's oil tankers now belong to the 'shadow fleet', more than a thousand ships which Russia uses to skirt sanctions and - in...
Brain fog and perimenopause
29 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
BBC Tech Editor Zoe Kleinman was about to go live on TV to explain a global outage affecting dozens of websites and apps. Millions would be watching, ...
Twin spirits: A lost bond that lives in dreams
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Claire grew up in a multi-faith household that often looked beyond traditional beliefs for solutions. At 17, everything changed when her mother discov...
What is the 'Russian cultural code'?
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why the traditional kokoshnik headdress is en vogue in Russia, and how it has become a poster image for the Kremlin’s vision of national identity. W...
Stemming the tide in Normandy
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Coastal erosion has become a serious problem for many seaside communities, no more so than in Normandy, in north-west France, where rising sea levels,...
Inside India's war on Maoists
22 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For nearly 60 years, the Indian government has been fighting a violent group of Maoists in the country. They are followers of the late Chinese leader,...
Raising children on a warming planet
22 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Another round of global climate talks is taking place at the COP30 summit, but some are questioning whether there is much point to these gatherings. W...
Navigating faith on the road
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Canada is home to thousands of Sikh truck drivers, crossing North America in cabs that double as kitchens, bedrooms and places to pray. In a single we...
China’s global spending spree
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
China has been on a giant global shopping spree. Since 2000, Chinese state banks have fuelled investments and acquisitions at a surprisingly rate - so...
Fifty years since Franco: Spain, the valley and a troubled legacy
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fifty years after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, Spain continues to feel its way towards an accommodation between its once-warring factio...
The Shiralee: D'Arcy Niland's 1955 Australian western
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Shiralee is a 1955 novel by D'Arcy Niland, telling the story of a wandering swagman on a journey through the Australian outback, accompanied by hi...
'No justice, just kills’
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On 19 November 2005, US Marines killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, many of them women and children. The incident led to the longest US war crimes i...
Film director Gurinder Chadha
16 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is the inspiration behind Gurinder Chadha's new film Christmas Karma. Scrooge becomes Mr Sood, a miserly businessma...
The COP 30 summit and the climate change frontline
15 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 30th COP climate summit is under way in the Brazilian city of Belém. BBC World Service Environment Correspondent Navin Singh Khadka has been cove...
Changing religion for love
15 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How difficult is it to stay together when you have different religious faiths? US Vice President JD Vance spoke recently about his interfaith marriage...
Finding my true self through Druidry
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As a teenager, Mhara was struggling with her gender identity and sexuality. She felt completely alone. But finding books about witchcraft and Druidry ...
Ukraine's Colombian soldiers
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From jungle guerrilla warfare to frozen trenches: why did they leave and will they ever return? The story of the Colombian soldiers choosing to fight ...
The Chinese Cryptoqueen
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Between 2014 and 2017 thousands of ordinary Chinese people handed their money over to a company that promised them fabulous riches by helping them to ...
Chef Yoshifumi Yamaguchi
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Exploring the culinary artistry of chef Yoshifumi Yamaguchi , a visionary bridging Kyoto and Kampala. As co-founder of Cots Cots, an artistic Japanese...
The great hunger: Stalin's famine in Kazakhstan
09 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Few people outside Kazakhstan know of the famine that destroyed nomadic life in the 1930s, and left more than a third of the population dead or displa...
Does Kruger deserve a park?
08 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kruger national park in South Africa is one of the most well known nature reserves in the world. But the legacy of Paul Kruger, who the park is named ...
Mamdani’s New Yorkers
08 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Immigrant, Muslim and self-proclaimed democratic socialist, Zohran Mamdani is also, at 34, the city’s youngest mayor in a century. Famed for his cha...
Kai Höss: My grandfather, the Commandant of Auschwitz
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a cinema in south-west Germany an audience is gathered to watch an Oscar winning film, Zone of Interest, about the life of Rudolf Höss, Commandant...
In the shadow of the railway
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After years of Chinese investment in Africa, the West is fighting back. Through the Lobito Corridor project, the US and European countries are investi...
Striking gas in Bolivia
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In July 2024, Bolivia discovered the Mayaya Centro-X1 gas field, its largest find in nearly 20 years. With an estimated 1.7 trillion cubic feet of res...
The real ‘Yellowstone’: A battle for the cowboy way of life
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ranches, rodeos and public land. This is the story of a surprising battle raging in the American West, and the unlikely coalition it’s forged. Ne...
Lara Dizeyee's Kurdish couture
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kurdish designer Lara Dizeyee is preparing a couture collection for Milan Fashion Week. Dizeyee fled Iraqi Kurdistan as a child, grew up in the US, an...
What’s behind the war in Sudan?
02 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Blood spilled in Sudan's el-Fasher massacre is visible from space. What led to the latest dark turn of events that took place after the Rapid Support ...
How Russian AI targets news organisations
01 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Networks of bots - automated social media accounts - have been found to be targeting European elections including, in the last year, those in Moldova,...
Women share stories of losing their hair
01 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Something unusual happened recently at the Miss USA beauty contest: Miss Nevada, 22-year-old Mary Sickler, walked on stage without any hair. She had l...
The right thing: Confronting my abuser
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
***This programme contains references to sexual abuse which some listeners may find upsetting*** For decades, Larry Nassar was the doctor for the wome...
Jihadists and AI
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How Jihadists wrestle with the question: to use or not to use. The allure of this powerful tool and the damage they fear it could inflict on their ima...
Bonus: Cyber Hack - Evil Corp
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
They steal billions: Cyber Hack investigates the alleged cyber gangs and the heists and hacks they’re accused of carrying out. No one is said to be ...
David Harewood: Return to Othello
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The espionage TV series, Homeland, brought David Harewood international fame but he is also known as the first Black actor to play Othello at the UK’...
'Looking American' to avoid deportation
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Drone surveillance, sign language and 'looking American' are all suggestions that Brazilian immigrants are making to each other as ways to avoid being...
Living with motor neurone disease
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Former England ruby captain Lewis Moody recently revealed he had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND), and our conversations give an insigh...
The right thing: A deal with God
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
***This programme contains references to imprisonment, child abandonment and references to suicide which some listeners may find upsetting*** Since th...
G-Land: Surf and spirits
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Off the coast of Java, Indonesia, lies G-Land, one of the world’s most legendary surf breaks, framed by a dense forest that was once home to the now...
The last cowboys
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Truck drivers are often seen as symbols of freedom and independence. But how free is life on the road today, when the watchful eye of the system is al...
Bonus: The Global Story - A Gazan journalist's diary
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Reporting on the war in Gaza has only been possible because of the work of Palestinian journalists, because the Israeli government will not let foreig...
Carl Brandon Strehlke: My search for the 15th Century artist Beato Angelico
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Art historian Carl Brandon Stehlke is a world expert on the great 15th Century Florentine painter Fra Angelico, and this is his dream project: a histo...
A people’s history of Gaza
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The back-story of Gaza, from the 1940s to the 2010s, told through the personal experiences of a wide variety of ordinary people - a teacher, a smuggle...
Reporting the impact of the Gaza ceasefire
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Following the ceasefire in Gaza, this week has seen the release of hostages and prisoners on both sides and the beginning of the return of the remains...
Families in Israel and Gaza share their stories
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After two years and two days of war in Gaza, Israel and Hamas have agreed the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire. In our conversations, families i...
Mamdani New York
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Zohran Mamdani catapulted on to New York’s political scene this summer when he captured the Democratic nomination to run for Mayor this fall. A youn...
Fighting on two fronts
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
More than a third of Ukraine’s scientific institutions have been damaged or destroyed by Russian bombing. Many scientists have either fled the count...
Sabotage by smartphone
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ukrainian teenagers are being recruited online to carry out sabotage against their own country in return for cryptocurrency, and for some the conseque...
Drugs, Overdose, Hope - North Carolina and Nevada
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Drug overdose has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Fentanyl – a synthetic opioid mass produced in Mexico and smuggled across the border –...
Alexey Seliverstov: Bionic birdsong
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How fixed is the borderline between human music and the sounds of nature? That is a question that guides the work of Los Angeles-based composer Alexey...
Brazil's Miracle: an Indigenous disaster
12 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During the Brazilian military dictatorship, the Krenak indigenous people were banned from speaking their language, imprisoned in reformatories and for...
Tackling loneliness in India
11 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
India is known for its close knit families and communities, but modern work practices mean more and more people are living far from home, and sufferin...
Trump and autism: People affected speak out
11 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Donald Trump recently addressed what he described as the “horrible crisis” in autism, and rapid rise in reported cases over the last two...
Searching for hope as a hostage in Gaza
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After two long years President Trump has announced a ceasefire agreement which should see the remaining hostages returned home in exchange for the rel...
Global dancefloor: Saigon
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Frank McWeeny heads to the dancefloors of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) to uncover what Vietnamese alternative culture looks and sounds like today. With 7...
The biker gang ‘securing’ deadly Gaza aid sites
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We have identified seven members of an anti-Islamic biker gang who oversaw security teams at aid sites for starving Palestinians, run by the controver...
Bolivia’s Cholitas – From Outcasts to Icons
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With their pleated skirts and bowler hats the “cholita” women are a common sight in Bolivia’s administrative capital La Paz. They’re often fro...
Stephen Jones’ hats: A party on your head
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After growing up in the north of England British milliner Stephen Jones went on to become a pioneering British hat maker working in Paris. He has been...
Nuclear tensions in the Middle East
05 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The narratives and the doctrines built on ever-growing suspicions and fears that are once again stirring the Middle East. Russia’s invasion of Ukrai...
The Kremlin’s reporter
04 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pavel Zarubin has access to President Putin that other journalists can only dream of. He interviews him regularly, and travels around the world cover...
Conversations from a year in Gaza and Israel
04 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We look back over the past 12 months of the conflict between Israel and Hamas through the conversations we have recorded. It is almost two years since...
Orthodoxy or death: The fight for Mount Athos
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
**This programme contains discriminatory language** On Greece’s Mount Athos, the most holy site in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, lies a rift in the...
Powering Nigeria
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
According to the World Bank, more than 80 million people in Nigeria still lack access to electricity, making it the country with the largest energy ac...
Deepfaking disability
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A growing industry of content creators is teaching people how to make money from AI models, promising quick profits. Their strategy: steal content, al...
Haitians living in fear in the Dominican Republic
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Dominican Republic is the Caribbean’s number one tourist destination. Last year 11 million visitors came here, many enjoying the five star resor...
Emilia Wickstead: London Fashion Week
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Inspiration for Emilia Wickstead’s luxury fashion brand comes from her childhood home in New Zealand, her adolescence in Italy’s most fashionable ...
Bonus: The Global Story
28 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can Apple cut ties with China? Apple is promising to make more products in the US, backed by a $600bn investment over the next four years. But after d...
Social media influencers and politics
27 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when social media influencers join forces with politicians to promote their messages? Around the world political parties are switching f...
Living with the threat of drone attacks
27 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There are now more Russian drone attacks on Ukraine than ever before in the conflict. On some nights, hundreds are targeted at the country. In one rai...
Finding my Sikh faith against the odds
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Harj Gahley is a Sikh who began gambling when he was just 23. What started as a ‘fun’ night out with friends at a casino spiralled out of control,...
Bonus. 13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can Nasa build the most complex flying machine in space history? The plan is to create a permanent human presence in space.It’s Spring 1969 - two mo...
Goodreads’ ‘unfair’ rating problem
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
BBC Trending investigates how negative ‘pre-read’ and pre-publication Goodreads ratings are leaving writers - and readers - mystified. Goodreads i...
‘A new foe’: Conscripting women in Denmark
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Denmark is eyeing up the military threat from Russia – and dramatically increasing the numbers in its national service. Now, 18-year-old girls are f...
Lesia Khomenko: Art and war
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Artist Lesia Khomenko left Kyiv with her daughter the day after the Russians invaded Ukraine – leaving her husband and all of her artwork behind. Sh...
Will a fugitive oligarch sway Moldova’s election?
20 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On 28 September, Moldova’s parliamentary election will be closely watched by leaders in both the EU and Russia.Ilan Shor, a fugitive oligarch on the...
A radio lifeline for Afghan women
20 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Women in Afghanistan are unable to access education, and getting medical help is difficult. But a radio station in the Panjshir Valley is trying to ge...
Charlie Kirk and free speech
20 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The shooting of conservative US activist Charlie Kirk has intensified what was already a bitter divide between those who found him inspiring, and thos...
Digital Dolittles: Talking to the animals?
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Digital technology has transformed the science of bioacoustics - the ways we hear and record animal life in the deep oceans, through the earth and in ...
The social lives of bacteria
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our bodies are filled with bacteria that have rich social lives and, just like people, these microbial neighbours and families do not always get along...
Faith on the Russia-Ukraine frontline
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian army personnel have been killed since the Russian invasion of their country. Russian casualties could be as high as 250...
Kenya: A Battle For Gen Z
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past year, Kenya has been rocked by anti-government protests. What started as a demonstration over proposed tax increases soon turned into a ...
Jon Foreman: Art that goes out with the tide
15 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jon Foreman is a Land Artist. He creates work in natural spaces using natural materials like stones, sand, leaves and driftwood. Known for his mesmeri...
Decoding China’s doublespeak
14 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How the Chinese Communist Party gets lost in translation and whether it’s accidental or intentional. “The Belt and Road Initiative”, “communit...
Who's behind Europe's largest rare book heist?
13 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The University library in Tartu, in Estonia, is a large brutalist complex, surrounded by concrete water fountains and futuristic steel sculptures. But...
Would you want to live until 150?
13 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During an unguarded conversation between President Putin and President Jinping in Beijing, the Chinese leader suggested that scientific developments m...
Selling misleading fertility hope
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The global fertility supplements industry has an estimated worth of over 2 billion dollars, and it’s growing. Some experts have raised the alarm aro...
Tequila with the bat man
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Rodrigo Medellin loves bats. The Mexican conservationist has been obsessed with the often maligned creatures for over six decades. As a child, he kept...
My blessed boy: The millennial saint
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How does a seemingly ordinary boy prove to be so extraordinary that he’s given a halo by the Catholic Church? Saint Carlo Acutis was just 15 years o...
Saving Gaza's past
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The history of Gaza dates back more than 5000 years. In antiquity, it was a key port on the Mediterranean coast. Assyrians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, By...